This archive report was first published on 26 October 2019.
Published on October 26, 2019, K24's parent company, Mediamax, is facing financial difficulties, particularly after the exit of SportPesa and new regulations pushing betting adverts outside the watershed period.
As a result, the company has issued redundancy notices, with some journalists already leaving, and is expected to fire about 150 employees this coming week.
TV personalities Betty Kyalo and Anne Kiguta, who are among the highest-paid journalists at K24, are among those whose presence is being re-evaluated against value delivered.
According to unverified sources, their salaries are in the neighbourhood of Ksh800,000.
Betty Kyalo runs her hyped Weekend with Betty programme, which was launched in December 2018, while Anne Kiguta has been running The Punchline since mid-July.
Insiders say the celebrity TV journalists are not living up to their hype, with Punchline hardest hit, as viewership steadily falls.
A senior editor at Mediamax said the management has taken note of the show's performance and is relooking at it.
Mediamax is reviewing its staffing expenses and is likely to push out more employees across its media platforms – from TV, radio, digital, and the newspaper.
