Juan Senor, President, Innovation Media Consulting Group at a Google Meet with media executives and managers in Nigeria organised by The Journalism Clinic shares insights and ideas on navigating the financial crisis facing media organisations worldwide. Lekan Otufodunrin was at the meeting.
With the dire state of the media in Nigeria following the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in various desperate cost-cutting measures, the question of “Where do we go from here” must be paramount on the minds of owners and managers.
To get answers to various questions on how to navigate through the difficult times they are experiencing, many of them participated in the Google Meet organized by The Journalism Clinic with Juan Senor, President, Innovation Media Consulting Group as the speaker.
Despite various internet connection issues, most of the media executive stayed on to listen to Senor on global media responses to the impact of COVID-19 on the industry and his suggestions on what steps to consider.
Some staff have already been sent on forced leave and there are indications that some may be sacked.
Confirming the devastating impact of the virus on the operations of media organizations, Senor called for collaboration to reduce the cost of production and distribution, more engagements with the readers, development of digital revenue business model, more specialized reporting among others options.
“Don’t waste a good crisis. You have to embrace the changes it offers. You need to look forward and move ahead,” Senor stated.
While noting that offering their content free on websites and other online platforms was one of the biggest mistakes the newspaper industry made, Senor said it was time to be bold and earn maximum digital revenue.
“The readers have to pay for especially the premium content. While they can read the breaking news for free, you must charge for analysis, opinion, good advice, informed commentaries and specialised reports.
” You need to rethink your websites, ask for payment for some sections of your websites. You must build paywalls. Free is expensive in a digital age. You must diversify and build Reader Revenue, “Senor counselled, adding that for a start, online readers should be made to register to have access to the websites.”
Considering the high cost of importing newsprint, ink, printing and distribution, Senor said there is an urgent need for the consolidation of operations and collaboration to reduce cost.
” You should come together, buy materials together and explore joint printing from a few locations instead of every company having its own printing machine all over the country.
“This is not the time to be too protective of your business. This is a moment of crisis and you need to team up with others,” he said.
READ ALSO: WHAT OUR PRINT MEDIA MUST DO TO SURVIVE – OBE
With reduced pagination, he said some sections which cannot be easily covered due to the pandemic like Sports and Entertainment should be dropped for now and focus on issues that matter to people now.
For readers to appreciate the value of newspapers and the news industry, he suggested a joint campaign to engage readers on how news is critical their lives and why readers have to be willing to pay for it.
” You have to send letters to your readers to communicate the value of news. Don’t be afraid of doing this. Information is a public utility.”
While he is not opposed to engaging in other related businesses to earn additional revenue, he said more attention should be given to providing quality content as “only good journalism can save journalism.”
“ Content is no longer about telling readers what happened, where and when, but what’s next and explaining to them the issues. Breaking news does not have much value again when anyone can break news.”
Less attention, he said should be devoted to printing, manufacturing, events and others to concentrate on the main journalism work.
Responding to the question of what to do about major social media platforms like Facebook using newspaper content for free, he recommended the consideration of imposition of digital news tax from which media organizations will get a percentage now in force in some countries.
READ ALSO: WHAT MEDIA LEADERS, STAFF MUST KNOW NOW
“You should stop distributing your content on the platforms. Only serve appetisers and make people come to your websites to read your stories”
Asked about the call for a bailout for the media, he said it was in order considering the importance of the news media as an essential service.
Director/Founder of The Journalism Clinic, Mr Taiwo Obe who moderated the session thanked the participants and promised to share with them the 2020 Innovation reports with them.
Chairman of Punch Newspaper, Mrs Angela Emuwa commended the meeting saying the insights shared were useful.
Other participants included the President of the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and Publisher of THISDAY Newspaper, Prince Nduka Obiagbena, Publisher of BusinessDay, Mr Frank Aigbogun, General Manager of Vanguard Newspapers, Mr Gbenga Adefaye, Managing Director of Tribune, Mr Edward Dickson, Managing Director, Daily Times, Aliu Akosile, Managing Director of Daily Independent, Steve Omanufeme and Editor-In-Chief of Premium Times, Musikilu Mojeed.
Tweets from @clinic4Journos
One advice to publishers and newspapers: “Big crisis like #Covid_19 accelerate trends. Things we weren’t expecting to happen in, say, 5 years are going to happen sooner.”
Only journalism will save journalism. Journalism will not be saved by events, e-commerce but by people willing to invest in it.” –
Launch a digital-revenue business.” “Transform your #newsroom “You need to bring back reader revenue.
Newspaper is a public utility. Like health. Like internet….The government should consider bailing it out. –
Nigerian media owners should push legislation on #DigitalNewsTax
This is really great. But my fear is that did Senor take into the congnisance the peculiar socio-economic and political system in Nigeria before coming up with some of these his recommendations?
Yes some of the recommendations are very fantastic but how practical are they in present day Nigeria? It’ll only work when we redefined and reorient what journalism in its entirety is all about in this clime.