The Coronavirus pandemic that has ruined the economies of several countries, resulting in the collapse of several business empires has taken a heavy toll on the media industry.
In India, several media houses have already wound up their shops and many others, including the so-called biggies in the industry, have resorted to large scale retrenchment of staff, larger pay cuts and reduction in the number of pages to bring down their overhead expenses.
Though it was initially believed to be a short-term phenomenon, it is now evident that the pandemic is not going to die down so soon and there is going to be a long-term impact on every sector.
The media houses have realised that they have to bear the brunt of this situation for some more months to come, if not years. As a result, they have started resorting to further salary cuts and retrenchment of more staff.
According to sources, Deccan Chronicle group has announced that the salary cuts ranging from 20 per cent to 50 per cent would continue at least till March 2021. And there is no guarantee that even this reduced salary is paid in full every month.
While there would be 20 per cent cut in the salaries of employees of Deccan Chronicle newspaper in Hyderabad, it would be 30 per cent in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Chennai editions. In all the other editions, the salary cuts for the DC employees would be 50 per cent.
And for Andhra Bhoomi employees, the salary cuts would be 50 per cent cutting across all editions and all regions.
The situation is no different in other media houses as well. More harsh news is expected to flow from them sooner or later, if the situation continues like this.
