Regional news channels in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are going through their most difficult phase. With the advent of umpteen news channels in Telugu, the competition for news, Ads has shot up like never before leaving small-ticket channels in deep losses.
Maintenance cost of channels, rent in prime locales, vehicles and their fuel costs, drivers salaries and salaries of all employees are all said to be taking a toll on the management. After all this, what all channels offering is same news, similar content more or less.
Barring few leading news channels who are minting money, others have least TRPs and revenue losses. Apparently this is forcing few small-ticket news channels to either delay in giving salaries to employees or not giving salaries. “We have not received our salaries in the past 3 months and not sure when we get,” told an employee of a Telugu news channel on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile another news channel has stopped paying salaries to employees whose pay is more than Rs 20,000, corroborated by its employees. Due to set up of several news channels in small time led to this situation, say Analysts.
Mushroom growth of news channels, lack of proper quality content and people and even market going through its slump together caused this critical situation. Few such TV channels who’re going through this phase are even planning to sell off and trying to come out of this news web. The moot question is are there any takers?