By the time you read this, the Citizen Newspaper of Tanzania will not have physical/print copies of its weekend edition. Going forward, all these will be web-based. Many argue it’s a fate that awaits Ugandan newspapers. That this end can only be delayed but it can’t be stopped. There’s no single research paper in Uganda that has addressed itself to this effect of social/digital media to the print newspapers. Thus, the question remains; ‘What is the future of newspapers in Uganda?’
Will print survive another 5 years? Another 10 years?
Newspapers are grappling with high costs of production and shrinking readerships plus advertising revenues. The adverts were always driven by the readerships. As more people move away from the print readerships, the advertisers have also moved. But most importantly for the advertisers, digital has given them possibilities of reaching audiences directly. Above all, digital gives them flexibilities in terms of segmentation and targeting. Now an advertiser can be deliberate on the target age group, the target gender, the target preferences to mention but a few.
In terms of readership, newspapers lost out to the digital platforms. Newspapers thus are no longer the first source of news. They lost that moat. Now news is everywhere, on Tiktok, on Whatsapp, and on the other social media platforms. Newspapers are now playing catch-up with the news of the day. It’s clear that something must fundamentally change when it comes to the newspaper model. What has been disrupted is the newspaper model. It’s not that people won’t read anymore, or that newspapers can’t make money anymore, they’re just running a model that’s not sustainable.
Any new business executive at a newspaper firm must immediately answer the question of; ‘what is the new model?’ And it may not be a simple model of simply open a website, transition digitally and insert a paywall. That may not be as straight forward. Few newspapers have been able to generate break-even revenues from their paywall models. That implies even the paywall must be thought through.
At Africa Nxt Gen, we see possibilities of a hybridized model. The model of the newspaper must take on hybrid forms. “Imagine a TikTok newspaper.” What would it look like if Monitor or Observer were to be reproduced for the TikTok audience? The model of the future borders on this intersection, this merger of the print capabilities and the digital capabilities. Business executives must be thinking along those lines.
But newspapers must also rebrand ‘beyond the newspaper.’ The first constraint is if newspapers continue seeing themselves as newspapers. Because they are not newspapers anymore and they won’t be. Instead, they could start to think of themselves as curators of high-quality content, exclusives, deep insights, investigative. The ‘future newspaper’ must start to do what digital can never do and will never do. Newspapers must go from ‘being news’ to ‘being timeless.’ They must occupy a new place on the landscape, that’s the harder place of creating the timeless. Newspapers can no longer compete on the news front. Again, that’s a whole rethink to the ‘newspaper.’ The newspaper of the future won’t be called a ‘newspaper.’ That’s the starting point to the future. For executives to comfortably say; ‘Now that we are not newspapers, who are we?’ The news will shift to the digital. But the Print must now play a totally different role. It’s the role of the timeless.
Business leaders must be asking two questions:
1.What is the point of intersection of the print and digital?
2. What is the new role of print given that digital has assumed the role of the ‘newspaper’?
This is a paradigm shift from what newspapers have been doing in the past- trying to play catch-up to the digital media. That catch-up won’t happen. From now on, it’s a recreation, a re-invention of the print, an assumption of new roles.
Digital is not killing the newspaper; it’s simply enabling the newspaper to play new roles. Digital is freeing up the print newspaper and giving it new degrees of freedom. It’s those new degrees of freedom that should inform the discussion for the future of the newspaper.
There is a future for the newspaper, but it’s one beyond news.
The Future of Newspapers in Uganda
By the time you read this, the Citizen Newspaper of Tanzania will not have physical/print copies of its weekend edition. Going forward, all these will be web-based. Many argue it’s a fate that awaits Ugandan newspapers. That this end can only be delayed but it can’t be stopped. There’s no single research paper in Uganda that has addressed itself to this effect of social/digital media to the print newspapers. Thus, the question remains; ‘What is the future of newspapers in Uganda?’
Will print survive another 5 years? Another 10 years?
Newspapers are grappling with high costs of production and shrinking readerships plus advertising revenues. The adverts were always driven by the readerships. As more people move away from the print readerships, the advertisers have also moved. But most importantly for the advertisers, digital has given them possibilities of reaching audiences directly. Above all, digital gives them flexibilities in terms of segmentation and targeting. Now an advertiser can be deliberate on the target age group, the target gender, the target preferences to mention but a few.
In terms of readership, newspapers lost out to the digital platforms. Newspapers thus are no longer the first source of news. They lost that moat. Now news is everywhere, on Tiktok, on Whatsapp, and on the other social media platforms. Newspapers are now playing catch-up with the news of the day. It’s clear that something must fundamentally change when it comes to the newspaper model. What has been disrupted is the newspaper model. It’s not that people won’t read anymore, or that newspapers can’t make money anymore, they’re just running a model that’s not sustainable.
Any new business executive at a newspaper firm must immediately answer the question of; ‘what is the new model?’ And it may not be a simple model of simply open a website, transition digitally and insert a paywall. That may not be as straight forward. Few newspapers have been able to generate break-even revenues from their paywall models. That implies even the paywall must be thought through.
At Africa Nxt Gen, we see possibilities of a hybridized model. The model of the newspaper must take on hybrid forms. “Imagine a TikTok newspaper.” What would it look like if Monitor or Observer were to be reproduced for the TikTok audience? The model of the future borders on this intersection, this merger of the print capabilities and the digital capabilities. Business executives must be thinking along those lines.
But newspapers must also rebrand ‘beyond the newspaper.’ The first constraint is if newspapers continue seeing themselves as newspapers. Because they are not newspapers anymore and they won’t be. Instead, they could start to think of themselves as curators of high-quality content, exclusives, deep insights, investigative. The ‘future newspaper’ must start to do what digital can never do and will never do. Newspapers must go from ‘being news’ to ‘being timeless.’ They must occupy a new place on the landscape, that’s the harder place of creating the timeless. Newspapers can no longer compete on the news front. Again, that’s a whole rethink to the ‘newspaper.’ The newspaper of the future won’t be called a ‘newspaper.’ That’s the starting point to the future. For executives to comfortably say; ‘Now that we are not newspapers, who are we?’ The news will shift to the digital. But the Print must now play a totally different role. It’s the role of the timeless.
Business leaders must be asking two questions:
1.What is the point of intersection of the print and digital?
2. What is the new role of print given that digital has assumed the role of the ‘newspaper’?
This is a paradigm shift from what newspapers have been doing in the past- trying to play catch-up to the digital media. That catch-up won’t happen. From now on, it’s a recreation, a re-invention of the print, an assumption of new roles.
Digital is not killing the newspaper; it’s simply enabling the newspaper to play new roles. Digital is freeing up the print newspaper and giving it new degrees of freedom. It’s those new degrees of freedom that should inform the discussion for the future of the newspaper.
There is a future for the newspaper, but it’s one beyond news.
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