Media think on how to push through hard times

A lot of thinking is going on among different media houses to keep the industry alive. The industry, according to analysts, is facing fragmentation and also trying to cope with the “mind-boggling range of sources of information available to readers, from Wikipedia to Google and the social networks, which have conspired to cause publishers of print media to re-evaluate” their strategies.

Though there appears to be a consensus among analysts that the print media will survive the onslaughts but not as a ‘mass market,’ the analysts however think that introspection, convergence and business strategy will make some media organisations to stay alive.

Some of the thinking going on, according to Tony Rogers in About.com, includes decision of whether to charge for online publications. They are also deep in strategies on ways of increasing revenue and cutting costs in this challenging time. Media houses are also strategising on how to boost circulation figures and whether to review credit adverts from clients and agencies who presently owe media houses huge amount of money.

No matter the thinking, the publishers would not want to compromise content, says Angela Quintal in her article in Bizcommunity, believing that content is still king, but worried that in the face of increased economic pressures, the temptation to cut costs at the expense of quality can be almost irresistible. “The challenge will be to maintain the standards of quality content and presentation – which readers have come to expect – while running a business that still delivers an acceptable return on investment for its shareholders,” she says.

In his strong belief that print media will remain strong, William West, a Sydney-based freelance journalist, relying on research believes that most people retain much more information they take in from a printed page, than from a computer screen. “It’s not clear yet why this is so, but experts say that the difference in recall is nevertheless striking. Even putting all print media advantages aside, print media have other, possibly more important, advantages. This is illustrated by the fact that, even in the online world, the most popular information websites are still operated by big newspapers,” he notes.

However, experts warn that the media and the advertising industry must brace up themselves for a rough time. An analyst, Edwin Ekene Uhara in his discussion on ‘Reinventing the print media,’ in Nigerianpilot.com, argues that though the print media has survived past technological innovations, but it needs to imbibe new thinking to continuously stay alive.

He advises that apart from depending solely on revenues from advertisers, which has sent ‘News Week Magazine’ to its untimely grave, newspapers should also be making money from subscriptions. “Many Nigerians may or may not welcome this development, but, it is important that the Editors Guild and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria as well the Nigerian Union of Journalists adopt a new approach that will make online readers to pay for the services because, according to Rupert Murdock, newspaper owners are paying the journalists who gather, edit and publish the stories.”

Uhara believes that the act of making newspaper contents free on the internet by the conventional media is one of the major reasons behind the dwindling fortunes of the print media, and this is also responsible for the large volumes of unsold newspapers and magazines been recorded daily.

Though, practitioners and owners of traditional media (print and electronic media) can again heave a sigh of relief over suspected threat to the continued existence of the sector as statistics available in the recently published Mediafacts indicated that advertisers still prefer the traditional media in driving their marketing campaigns.

But it is still of concern that the print media suffered some setback as its share of the total N91.846 billion Ad expenditure in 2012, the press got N8.974 billion decline of about 50 percent from the figure in 2011. Analysts say while some media houses gained, others that have operational challenges suffered drastically.

By: Daniel Obi