[ASIA] The Internet arm of one of Hong Kong’s most popular broadcasters has cut staff and will discontinue updating its own news feeds, Chinese-language news reports said Friday.
Although the site will still feature streaming news reports from its parent, television network TVB, TVB.com will no longer produce its own news, hongkong.internet.com reported Friday.
The company said it is laying off 45 employees immediately, representing 45 percent of the site’s staff. However, TVB.com said in a statement that any reports that the online unit would close entirely were “absolutely untrue.”
“TVB.com is fully committed to developing both its Hong Kong and China portals in order to capitalize on the revenue opportunities in the Internet media sector through having a joint presence in Hong Kong and China,” the company said.
TVB.com joins the South China Morning Post and Next Media as online arms of major Hong Kong news outlets that have cut staff. Next Media’s online unit ceased operations in November 1, 2000.