TVB sacks 300 as channels merge, sales platform shuts
Local broadcaster TVB announced on Monday it's sacking more than 300 people as part of a restructuring plan. In a filing to the stock exchange, the loss-making broadcaster said it will merge two channels, J2 (channel 82) and Finance, Sport & Information (channel 85). The new channel will be called TVB+, which the station says will seek to provide content for a young audience. The broadcaster said the overall production of programming hours will go down as the number of channels it runs is reduced from five to four.  More than 200 staff will be laid off. "While we will continue to invest strongly in our prime-time production, we will reduce our production budgets for fringe-hour content and discontinue any programs that fallshort of their desired audience or commercial impact," it said in the filing. TVB added it expects to save a further HK$100 million in content cost in 2024, after announcing HK$260 million in annual cost savings earlier this year. The broadcaster also said it's merging two online shopping platforms, Ztore and Neigbuy, closing down the former in less than a month and resulting in 100 job losses. That's expected to cut HK$50 million to HK$60 million in annual fixed costs and overheads from its e-commerce business. The broadcaster said the moves are made to "enhance viewer and user experience, increase operating efficiency and boost long-term revenue potential".