It is a crisis time for the media field across the country. The nationwide lockdown following the outbreak of Coronavirus has hit the media industry hard so much so that many media houses have started resorting to cost-cutting exercises.
Amid the national media, Indian Express group announced salary cut ranging from 10 per cent to 30 per cent for its staff across the board.
Though other media houses like the Times of India, Hindustan Times and the Hindu haven’t announced any pay cuts for its staff, they may have to do so if the lockdown conditions continue.
Almost all the dailies have reduced the number of pages as part of cost-cutting and are all set to impose salary cuts for the staff, besides retrenching the staff in a big way. Some big media houses are not disclosing the details, but many others are doing it openly.
Andhra Jyothy is learnt to have started sacking its employees beginning with desk and is likely to impose a 25-30 per cent salary cut for others. Eenadu has not come out yet but in the name of disciplinary action, it is sacking people one after the other.
Amidst these unfortunate developments in the media field, popular channel NTV has announced that there is not going to any salary cuts for any of its employees.
“Our employees working hard to sustain the popularity of the channel. We are not going to impose any cuts in the salaries of our staff, though our income has come down drastically,” NTV chairman Narendra Chowdary announced.
Similarly, Star Maa channel also reportedly announced that there is no plan to take up any salary cuts for the employees. What is more, the channel is said to be providing food and other requirements for its staff within the office. Needless to say, the employees are on cloud nine.
But god knows what is there in store for them in future. If the lockdown continues, the channels, too, will collapse one after the other due to lack of advertisement revenue.
Let us wait and see what will happen.
