The owner of the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB told the NZX the job cuts represented 15 per cent of its workforce.

Media company NZME has made more than 200 positions redundant.

The owner of the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB told the NZX that the job cuts represented 15 per cent of its workforce.

All remaining employees are being asked to accept a pay cut for 12 weeks.

​NZME has also temporarily suspended some products, including newspaper-inserted magazines covering real estate, motoring and travel, and reduced its sports coverage and the publication of community newspapers.

Directors' fees and the salary of the chief executive have been reduced by 20 per cent.

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"With the alert level four lockdown in place, NZME is expecting April 2020 advertising revenues to be approximately 50 per cent lower than April 2019," the company said in a statement to the NZX.

"While it remains impossible to predict with any accuracy the impact of the pandemic on NZME's full year financial performance, it is anticipated that revenue will be significantly down on the corresponding period in 2019," it said.

​NZME said the cost savings it was implementing would "partially offset" the anticipated revenue declines.

Many of the job losses are understood to be in NZME's sports, and lifestyle and entertainment divisions.

​NZME's shares closed at 18.5 cents on Thursday, valuing the business at just over $36 million.

Representatives from NZME and most of the country's other major media companies – along with Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi – will appear in front of Parliament's Epidemic Response select committee for a three hour session on Wednesday, when possible government assistance to the sector is expected to be discussed.

The other media companies that will be giving evidence to the committee are Stuff, MediaWorks, TVNZ, RNZ, Newsroom, The Spinoff and the National Business Review.

NZME earlier closed Radio Sport, saying that with the cancellation and suspension of "virtually all local, national and international events and competitions", it had been forced to look closely at the level of its sports coverage.

Magazine publisher Bauer has also closed its New Zealand operations, which published the New Zealand Listener, New Zealand Woman's Day, North and South and Metro.

Bauer has not ruled out continuing to produce and distribute some of its titles, such as New Zealand Woman's Day, from Australia.