Though a number of Telugu television channels have mushroomed in Andhra Pradesh in the last four or five years, hardly a half-dozen channels have been able to withstand competition and achieve break-even and are able to sustain financially. The others are still running but at the cost of their employees’ livelihood.

While journalists working in these channels daringly expose the irregularities in the society and the plight of the poor and the oppressed, they silently bear the suffering in their own organizations and hardly raise their voice against their respective managements for denying them salaries regularly. Very few of them speak out, as they are unable to bear the hunger pangs for a long time.

Take for instance, employees of Maha News television channel being brought out by Monica Broadcasting Private Limited owned by veteran journalist I Venkat Rao, brought their plight to the notice of this website, saying that they were not getting salaries properly. “The management is not giving any response to the employees when they ask for their salaries. Even those who are quitting the organization out of frustration, are not getting their dues cleared,” they said.

Another upcoming television channel, yet to start telecasting of its programmes, is also treating its employees in a similar fashion, sources said. It is learnt the management, while interviewing the reporters for jobs, wondered why they should be paid salaries every month. It is these channels which force some journalists resorting to blackmailing politicians and officials to make money, thereby bringing down the image of the entire journalist community.