12 July 2005

Bratislava: Slovak Radio (SRo) will lay off 84 employees and will end
foreign language broadcasting on shortwave by the end of July. The SRo
management wants to cut costs and make up for revenue shortfalls in
this way. The number of the public broadcaster's employees will go
down to an all-time low of 825. The SRo management has also halted all
investment projects.

The SRo's shortwave foreign language broadcasting will be replaced by
broadcasting [sic] through the Internet. "Since we estimate this
year's revenue shortfall from subscribers' fees at 400m korunas
[Slovak crowns] and from the state budget at 130m korunas, these
measures have become unavoidable," said SRo Director-General Jaroslav
Reznik.

The radio wants to save some 130m korunas by the end of the year in
this way, of which more than 16m korunas will be savings in wage
costs, after the deduction of severance pay. "The loss of 150m korunas
that we posted in the first six months of this year therefore should
not markedly increase," Reznik said. Source: Sme, Bratislava, in
Slovak 12 Jul 05 p 2

(BDXC-UK via BBCM via DXLD)