Raghav Bahl's BloombergQuint sacks 90 employees as it shuts TV division

BloombergQuint, a Joint Venture between Raghav Bahl’s Quintillion Media and Bloomberg Media Group, has sacked almost all of its broadcasting staff. 

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According to an official from the senior management, a total of 90 employees of the broadcast team have been asked to leave (50% of the total workforce).

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The executive said that the platform had made an investment of around Rs 200 crore in setting up studios and broadcasting infrastructure.

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However, the plan to launch a news channel was hanging in fire for the last three years as the government did not grant the company a licence to broadcast on TV.

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The joint venture had secured approval from the Foreign Investment Proposal Board for a 74:26 joint venture in November 2016 to operate an English language business news channel. However, it could not procure the mandatory broadcasting licence from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

A fortnight ago, the company had announced 75% pay cuts for all its staff. TheQuint.com, another platform owned by Quintillion, had sent half of its employees on leave without pay.

BloombergQuint.com is currently in the top five business news sites in the country.

Announcing the termination of its television division Wednesday, BQ said in a statement that it was refocusing its strategy towards a digital operation.

"BloombergQuint will now concentrate all its resources in building upon the early success of its award-winning premium digital subscription service, BloombergQuint.com, which is a market leader in India in the business news space," the company said.

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