Staff at Standard Group Kenya, publishers of The Standard and owners of KTN TV, have gone eight months without pay underlining the financial hardships that the once powerful media group is facing.
Information from Kenya shows that staff were last paid in November 2023. Before then, they had gone six months without pay.
Over the past three years, Standard Group has been hit hard by a slowing economy and sharp fall in advertising and circulation revenues.
The group is now a shadow of its former self. For more than five decades, it has been the main competitor of Nation Media Group which, too, is currently swimming in troubled economic waters.
In fact, there are reports that NMG could soon carry out another round of job cuts in Nairobi and Kampala.
In 2022, the Standard Group made a loss of Ksh 1 billion (Shs 30 billion), the biggest in its 122-year history.
The group last year admitted it was facing financial challenges, which made it unable to pay salaries on time.
Standard Group management blames the major decline in earnings on a slowing economy due to global uncertainties.
We have also been told that the group has lost over 100 employees in the last one year. Last year, the group introduced a voluntary early retirement scheme targeting to reduce its wage bill.
The Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) secretary general Eric Oduor said then that he had received distress calls from frustrated journalists at the media house.
He accused the media house of failing to fulfil its promises despite several meetings, thereby violating the rights of journalists.
