One of Turkey’s largest pro-government media outlets, TürkMedya, operating a number of dailies, TV stations and magazines, has decided to downsize due to increasing financial difficulties, the Medya Radar news website reported on Thursday.
Earlier this month the İstanbul Municipality stopped paying TL 10 million monthly to the company for “advertising expenses,” Turkish media reported.
Under TürkMedya’s downsizing measures, the Akşam newspaper stopped printing its weekly supplement, Akşam Life, which used to be distributed every Friday along with the regular paper.
Next month the Güneş daily, another brand, is expected to lay off a number of employees as it plans to discontinue its print issue and transition to an online news service.
TürkMedya also operates the pro-government Star newspaper and the 24 TV and 360 TV broadcasters, and it was recently rumored to have gone through a reduction in workforce due to cash flow troubles caused by a lack of advertising.
The group’s problems came to light after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost significantly large municipalities in the March 31 local elections, according to the report.