A major newspaper in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality has encouraged its employees to start their own businesses, a move that is seen as a potential layoff of its workers as an increasing number of newspapers in the country lose ground in the digital age.
Â
The Chongqing Daily Group has over 6,000 employees and made a profit of 200 million CNY (32 million USD) in 2014.
Â
Tsinghua University issued a research report earlier this month that the print advertising saw a 15 percent decline in 2014 as more big advertisers are drawn to the Internet.
Â
The Guangdong-based Southern Newspaper Group, a leading company in China's print media, saw a 37 percent drop of profit in 2014 while the Dazhong Newspaper group in East China's Shandong reported a 56 percent decline of profit in the same year.
Â
The report, compiled by the university's school of journalism and communication, said the decline may continue through 2015 amid the flagging economy.
Â
However, the media industry for the first time generated more than 1 trillion CNY (161 billion USD) in revenue in 2014 thanks to the expansion of Internet-based services.Â
.jpg)
 A major newspaper in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality has encouraged its employees to start their own businesses, a move that is seen as a potential layoff of its workers as an increasing number of newspapers in the country lose ground in the digital age.
