Prannoy Roy-promoted news broadcasting company NDTV is undergoing an internal restructuring process, with the management deciding to lay off about 50 employees of its 1,800-strong workforce across India.
Confirming the development to Business Standard, NDTV Group Executive Vice-Chairman KVL Narayan Rao said, “Many companies undergo lot of internal restructuring, and the step has been taken to improve the efficiencies.”
Rao said that the number of people who have asked to leave is “very minuscule”, or just “three per cent of the total staff strength”. It is learnt that employees from across departments, including journalists, have been asked to leave.
For the quarter ended June 30, NDTV had posted a standalone net loss of Rs22.71 crore on a revenue of Rs82.77 crore.
NDTV has already filed a lawsuit against Indian TV ratings monitoring agency TAM and its promoter companies Nielsen and Kantar Media Research of fudging viewership data in favour of networks that were allegedly willing to bribe its officials in India. NDTV’s lawsuit in the US had listed 42 counts against TAM, Nielsen, Kantar, WPP, etc.
NDTV had sought $810 million as compensation for the revenue loss it suffered over the years due to the alleged fudged viewership ratings, as well as $580 million as penalty for negligence by Nielsen and Kantar officials.
Earlier in 2009, NDTV had frozen the recruitments and in an internal mail, Roy had said, “The time for complacency is over. Each one of us needs to increase our productivity, our efficiency, our desire to learn and improve. This is the time to streamline our operations, excise any flab that the system may have gained in the boom times and return to being a lean, tough, strong, efficient and compassionate organisation."
