Euronews to shut down Turkish service

PARIS

The Euronews television channel based in France plans to end its broadcasts in Turkish and Italian.

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists said Euronews plans to dismiss 30 journalists.

The Italian channel will be closed, but news in the language will be broadcast in digital media, while the Turkish service will no longer be available, the statement added.

A total of 100 employees have left the channel since 2017, the statement added.

On Feb. 9, Euronews employees staged a one-day strike at the call of several unions.

However, in a statement to Hurriyet Daily News, a spokesperson for Euronews denied the report.

'Many private media across the world, like Euronews, have had to deal with challenging circumstances due to the COVID crisis. Discussions are being held internally at Euronews, like in many other companies in the world, to decide how to deal with this situation. If anything were to change with our Turkish edition, Euronews would of course officially communicate on this. However, to this day, we have not made any public announcement indicating that our Turkish edition will cease to exist,' said the statement. 

Founded in 1993, the Euronews channel broadcasts in 12 languages and has 500 permanent employees.

The pan-European television news channel had started broadcasting rolling news in Turkish in 2010.

The Turkish service had been broadcasting from France’s Lyon city by satellite and cable as well as online, like the station’s other languages, which include English, French, Russian and Arabic.