Star News, the 74:26 joint venture between ABP Ltd and Star India, has reduced its headcount and has closed down its Ranchi and Dehradun bureaus.
A Star News source said 12 video editors who were stationed in Delhi have been asked either to move to Mumbai or to Kolkata.
Speaking to Business Standard, Uday Shankar, CEO of Media Content & Communications Services that runs Star News, said the number of people who have been asked to leave is not large.
"We recently completed a restructuring exercise of our content. As a result of this about 15 people are no longer working with us since their locations and professional preferences did not match our requirements. These people are both from the technical and editorial teams," he said.
Star News has nearly 280 employees on its rolls. Dismissing rumours that Star News was undergoing a cost-cutting exercise, Shankar added that the initiative was not part of any "retrenchment or cost cutting exercise".
The Delhi operations have been curtailed as the company did not feel the need to keep a separate production facility in the city.
Since it was unusual for a news channel to be based out of Delhi, when Star News was launched it created a production facility in Delhi as well. "We are now convinced of the merits of a single production centre," he said.
The media industry buzz is that Star News has asked some of its employees to join the Kolkata bureau as it has plans to launch a Bengali news channel soon.
"There are various expansion plans that we are currently evaluating. Launching regional news channels is one of them," said Shankar.
However, it is too premature to comment on it," said Shankar. MCCS also has plans to start an English news channel.
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