Montreal: Radio-Canada program director Charles Ohayon has resigned his post claiming to be a victim of ‘yellow journalism.’

In recent weeks, local consumer press stories accused Ohayon of being in conflict of interest because of his personal relationship with Montreal producer Johanne Forgues, a vice-president with Prisma Productions.

src strongly denied any conflict, saying program proposals from Prisma and a second production house partly owned by Prisma, Productions Sovimage, were not managed by Ohayon.

Prisma is developing an international coproduction with China for eventual broadcast on Radio-Canada, and it was known that Ohayon and Forgues had traveled together to China last summer. Otherwise, Prisma has no primetime programming on src this season, while Sovimage has one show licensed by the network, the weekly firefighter teleroman Caserne 24.

In a prepared statement, src said it had accepted Ohayon’s resignation with ‘immense regret,’ adding ‘he had always demonstrated the greatest integrity, thoroughness and professionalism’ during his tenure with the network.

In the same communique, the network qualified some of the stories in the consumer press as ‘violent’ and ‘relentless’ personal attacks against its program director, ‘who decided to protect what is most precious: his reputation, his private life and those close to him.’

A private-sector producer prior to being named src program director in 1994, Ohayon will remain in his post until the network’s vp television, Michele Fortin, who consistently backed Ohayon, names a replacement.