Major Romanian media trust, Realitatea Catavencu announced salary cuts between 10% and 50%, after the advertising market dropped. The biggest salaries (over 4,000 euros) will see the biggest reductions, online journalist Iulian Comanescu writes on his blog.

The biggest cuts in pay checks will be seen by the broadcasted faces, who also earn the most, according to the cited source. The trust does not exclude increasing back the salaries, once the advertising market will recover. The information comes soon after F5, the web company belonging to Realitatea-Catavencu trust, launched business portal Money.ro, a 600,000 euros investment uniting all online content published on by the companies in the trust.

In the beginning of the current year, when all companies announced crisis measures, Realitatea-Catavencu was increasing the salaries by 11%. In the email the Realitatea-Catavencu board sent their staff, the company explained that all products costs must be reduced due to the economic crisis. The human resources expenditure represents half of the trust's spending. Top and middle management salaries will see up to 50% cut.

The company representatives said they were looking for measures to ameliorate the situation and that they were counting on all staff to help in this sense. Owner Sorin Ovidiu Vantu, Romanian businessman, told reporters from Pagina de media he expected the losses to be less then initially estimated, due to the pay cuts: around 7 million euros. Realitatea-Catavencu trust saw 12 million euros losses in the first half of 2009.