THE COUNTRY’S largest music and entertainment giant, GMM Grammy, plans to cut more than 100 jobs as cost management efforts and restructuring of the organisation into a provider of total media solutions, according to a source at the company.
The 100 employees will be laid off with effect from tomorrow. GMM Grammy is reportedly also considering cutting more jobs from its current staff strength of 3,000 employees.
The affected staff will get full compensation under labour laws plus an extra three months of salary due to the urgent notice.
The redundancy follows slide in the performance of its business units such as music, digital content production, public relations and accountancy. The company has been restructuring its internal management since the last two years in transforming the music and entertainment-based company into a total media solutions provider.
In line with those activities, last year the company decided to exit non-core business, selling its shares in SE-Education, Post Publishing, Matichon and Index Creative Village. The company also sold its magazine business to C True, which is majority-owned by Thai AirAsia chief executive officer Tassapon Bijleveld.
However, the source insisted that the recent move was not related to its terrestrial-based digital TV businesses – GMM 25 and One channel – who are seeing a boost in popularity and advertising revenue.
In a previous interview, Paiboon Dumrongchaitham, chairman of the music and entertainment giant, said he was impressed with the performance of both digital TV stations.
“Although its digital-TV business is still suffering from the huge investment cost of content production, the ratings and audience share of both One and GMM 25 channels have continued to rise after the revamp of its programming with prime-time soap operas and situation comedies,” he said.
