Effective December 4, 2018, several staff of Urban Television, owned by Vision Group have been sent home in a massive retrenchment exercise. Since its inception, Urban TV had not been successful, due to the large number of incoming television stations, making it difficult to attract substantial revenue.
A few months ago, Vision Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Robert Kabushenga had taken up the role of overseeing Urban TV in order to improve his revenues. This move did not succeed, prompting a detailed review of what could be done for one of the Group’s four television channels.
According to Mark Walungama, Vision Group’s head of Television, Urban TV will change its format and stop airing news, which was taking a chunk of its resources to produce.
“Instead of operating Urban’s internal news structure, we shall air news obtained by our other platforms for the Urban TV viewership,” Walungama said.
Since Uganda adopted digital migration, scores of TV stations have emerged, with most of them struggling.
