Sony has announced that 300 jobs are to go at cathode ray tube (CRT) based TV manufacturing plants in south Wales as it sees flagging demand for large CRT TVs due to the rise of the flat panel television.

The company said it needs to make the staff cuts at Bridgend and Pencoed to "protect the economic viability of the operation and enable it to continue to produce CRTs and TVs at competitive pricing levels".

"The move away from CRT based televisions accelerated last year with flat panel products now accounting for around half the UK market by value. The sales of larger screen CRT televisions actually fell last year and is predicted to continue to fall year on year," said the company.

Despite the move in the market to flat panel TVs Sony said it still expects to see "significant" demand for CRT products in the medium term. "We expect demand for CRTs to remain, particularly from Eastern Europe," said Sony. The Bridgend plant supplies CRTs to its European TV factories.

But the CRT activities within the large Pencoed plant mainly supply TVs to the UK market which is steadily shifting to flat panel products.

The company will still employ around 1,200 workers at the two factories. Staff have been informed and a period of consultation has commenced.