One of Turkey’s largest pro-government media groups, TürkMedya, operating a number of dailies, TV stations and magazines, has decided to shut down the Star newspaper and turn the Güneş paper into a four-page supplement of another of its dailies due to increasing financial strains, the Medya Radar news website reported.
The employees were officially notified of the decision on Monday, according to the report.
The Güneş newspaper will continue as a four-page supplement to be distributed with the pro-government Akşam newspaper. Several reports earlier this year had claimed that the daily was going to lay off a number of employees and transition to an online news service.
The group was said to be going through a financial crisis after the local elections in March of this year, in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was defeated in the significantly large municipalities of the country.
In August the İstanbul Municipality reportedly stopped paying TL 10 million ($1.68 million) monthly to the company for “advertising expenses.”
The group has recently undergone a downsizing where the Akşam newspaper discontinued its weekly supplement, Akşam Life, which used to be distributed every Friday along with the regular paper.