KOLKATA: From today, the skeleton editing staff of moneycontrol.com, a business and finance news portal, which operated from Matunga (West), will be operating from the television unit at Lower Parel.
It is learnt from industry sources that more than six reporters who were engaged in the financial news writing have been asked to leave.
“Network18 Group won’t be producing any original content for moneycontrol.com. It has adopted a rationalised move by laying off all the reporters engaged in financial news writing. More than six reporters have been asked to resign and made to cite that they are walking out from the news organisation on personal reasons, the release letters of the employees disclose,” revealed the highly placed media source.
TV18 Broadcast which has laid off around 300-400 people as a part of its restructuring exercise and has merged the operational teams of CNN IBN and IBN7, will now be producing the content for moneycontrol.com too. The young team would be editing the copies filed by the television bureau, sources added.
The portal’s editor Santosh Nair has been asked to report in the Lower Parel office, but there is no clarification regarding whom he will be reporting to. Earlier, Nair reported to R Jagannathan, editor at Firstpost.com.
Also, it is interesting to note that the portal’s chief executive officer Joyson Thomson was mulling to list the entity but it seems he has changed his plans overnight. “Though of late, moneycontrol.com was driven by marketing strategies and not hard core news perspective which it adopted earlier,” sources said.
There were talks the news portal would set up an editorial team at Delhi and Kolkata. “In fact a year ago, the company was eagerly looking to hire an editorial staff for the Delhi bureau,” sources said.
“The first carnage happened in the second week of August when TV18 said it would ask around 300-400 employees to leave. We got the notice in the last week of August,” recounts an employee.
When asked about the compensation package, he said: “The compensation package is up to the mark as we have been offered three months CTC and not in hand salary.”
Media analysts said that TV18 has restructured its operations and reduced its workforce significantly, as part of a cost cutting exercise due to the lackluster advertising environment and government regulations like the 12 minutes advertising cap on broad asters.
Now going forward with this downsizing, journalists are required to work across both internet and TV medium, as the group has created integrated newsrooms.
