BeIn lays off 300 staff, blames beoutQ

BeIN Media CEO, Yousef Al-Obaidly

Qatari BeIn Media has announced the layoff of 300 members of staff, specifically blaming the piracy of alleged Saudi-backed BeoutQ.

The figure represents 18% of its total staff in the country.

The layoffs were confirmed to Bloomberg from an unnamed source, who said that the company had made “difficult decisions to right-size our business”.

It is understood that these layoffs are just in the local area.

Last week, a French court ruled that Saudi Arabsat is distributing beoutQ. The case was brought forward by Qatari beIN Media Group, which was the original target of beoutQ’s piracy operation as a part of an ongoing trade dispute between the two nations.