Publishing newspapers
in Nigeria is an age long
business; it started with the publication of Iwe Iroyin in Abeokuta in 1859 by Rev. Henry Townsend who was a missionary. According to Mr. Ray Ekpu, the president of Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), and Chief Executive Officer of Newswatch magazine in his book The Leap of Faith, the period was an era of missionary journalism, when the society considered information dissemination as religious propagation rather than nationalistic effort.
Between 1880 and 1939, however, more than 50 newspapers had emerged but lacking national features.
Among the newspapers that emerged then were the Nigerian Chronicle, The Nigerian Daily Times, the West African Pilot; all of which were based in Lagos and Ibadan in South West Nigeria. This trend continued into the post independence era before a few northern newspapers like the Nigerian Citizen, and later the Comet ( Kano), the Northern Star (Kano), The Middle Belt Herald (Jos), The Daily Mail (Kano), etc were established. When, the federal government in 1966 established the The New Nigerian, other publications, with regional affiliations, were again established in the east and western part of the country. Thus, there was the Nigerian Outlook in the east, Daily Sketch in the west and the Morning Post in Lagos to add to the existing publications from the southern region.
Mallam Turi Mohammadu, a veteran journalist and former managing director of The New Nigerian Newspapers said in his book Courage and Conviction: NNN the first 20 years; that there was a time when only the The Nigerian Citizen was in contention with at least five others from the south on national viewpoints.
Indeed this trend continued into the1980s and by the time, the present generation of Nigerian newspapers had made their debuts there was apparent imbalance in ownership of newspapers in Nigeria.
Thus as at today there are newspapers like The Punch, Vanguard, The Champion, Thisday, Comet, The Tribune, Daily Independent, The Sun etc that are all based in the south and the Daily Trust the only notable private newspaper that is published across the Niger.
The gross over-numbering of newspapers in the north by the south does not mean a lack of trial by northern journalists at establishing newspapers at one time or the other. Indeed, reputable journalists established newspapers and magazines like The Reporter, The Democrat, Today, Citizen etc but most of them never lived to celebrate their fifth anniversaries.
One of the reasons the publisher of one of these defunct newspapers gave for the disappearance of his title from the newsstands was that the newspaper’s editorial success did not match with commercial success rate.
As plausible as this reason may be, especially looking at the disadvantaged position of the north in economic prosperity and advertisements patronage, I still beg to disagree with this position simply because we have learnt that in the history of newspaper publishing in the world there is a thin line between editorial success and commercial success rates. Indeed, one of the factors that account for a commercially successful newspaper is its editorial policy.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that the historical advantage of the south in terms of its colonial influence, high income and literacy level must have contributed to the gap between the south and the north in newspaper publishing.
Newspaper As a Business.
Apart from the fact that newspapers mirror the opinions of the society and provide the platform for expressing different viewpoints especially that of the people, newspapers have become a consequential business.
In developed societies like the UK, Japan, USA e.t.c an average newspaper circulates a million copies per day. In the UK specifically, according to the official yearbook of the UK (2004), over 1,300 regional and local newspapers sell about 13.6 million paid for titles and about 25.8 million free titles. The free titles are distributed to the public. In London for example, there are morning papers like the Metro that are distributed free.
In this category are some 549 others.
It has been reported that in Japan some newspapers have achieved about 7million copies per day. While in Germany, about 339 local and regional newspapers sell 21.6million copies per day. According to the federal foreign office of Germany, publication on Germany (2003) the highest selling newspapers called, the Bild sells over 4 million copies daily. In South Africa, the Business Day published by Johnnic Communications of Johannesburg circulates over 500,000 copies per day. The Wall Street Journal, a daily newspaper in the USA circulates about 1.8 million copies .
In Japan, Yomini Shirbium; a daily newspaper, has a circulation of 10.2million in the mornings and 4.2 million in the evenings.
In terms of advertising revenue, advert rate per page for newspapers in USA can be as high as 35,000 dollars, i.e. about 4.9m Naira. In Japan, it can be as high as 50,000 dollars i.e. about 7million naira and 20,000 dollars in UK i.e. about 2.8m naira per page.
In Nigeria, the trend has been that most newspapers are managing to survive with an average total print run of about 500,000 copies for all the newspapers combined and only about 150,000 naira advert rate per page. This suggests, however that a newspaper that publishes 25 pages of adverts could generate about 3.75 million naira per day as advert income; a comfortable performance level when other variables like low cost of labour, lower production quality and the lack of depth of news reporting as compared to what is obtained in advanced societies are taken into consideration.
Of course, some Nigerian newspapers are already achieving even beyond this seemingly comfortable level and proving bookmakers wrong. I know a newspaper company in Nigeria that recently posted a 40% profit on a turnover of about =N=2billion. Most insurance companies and manufacturing companies hardly attain this performance level in their operations. Pessimist like Edmund Wilsons said that Newspaper is like a living organism, growing mature, then eventually growing old, declining and dying. However, contemporary marketing research has proved otherwise and their findings are that like any product, a newspaper can be nurtured and needs not decline and die anymore .
This development has been made possible by a combination of lean management and the relative boom in the banking and telecommunication industries in Nigeria, which has led to high advertisement placements from clients in these sectors. The adaptation and development of Information Technology has also helped in the achievement of better performance levels for these media houses. Sincce there are newspapers in Nigeria that are already posting profits on their accounts it is only reasonable to refer to these papers as role models by modern publishers.
It is against this background that the proprietors of our newspaper Daily Trust consider newspaper business a worthwhile venture.
But more importantly the society needs a mirror and a platform for expressing divergent views on issues of national interest .The north in this regard needs a newspaper that would provide a critical and intellectual base for discourse and set agenda for a progressive political, economic, and social emancipation for the region. There are however, a few challenges, because of geographical income and literacy level differences that confront the northern publisher. a few of these challenges are as follows:
Challenges of Publishing in the North.
(I) Low Advertising Patronage
With about 70% of Nigeria’s blue-chip companies and Advertising agencies located in Lagos it becomes extremely difficult for northern publishers to break into the market and enjoy comparable measures of patronage with the southern papers that are closer to them and cover them the more.
This is notwithstanding the relative wider circulation of northern newspapers in northern markets in terms of circulation and readership. Getting advertising support from the agencies, therefore, is like squeezing water out of a stone.
Often times the clients have had to direct the agencies to include a certain publication in their media campaigns. To compound these problems, media research on newspaper readership and circulation is not well carried out in Nigeria to determine the reach of each medium- beyond Lagos. In our newspaper for example, we have had to write a letter of protest to a media research company in Lagos when they omitted our name for two years running from the list of newspapers that they claimed to have carried research on.
This is despite the fact that we are perhaps the highest circulating newspaper in northern Nigeria as at today.
(ii) Readership Bias
Closely related to the above is readership bias against northern publications. The bias is rooted in general poor readership culture in Nigeria where the average reader does not have a critical and discerning mind.. Most readers from the south do not see professionalism in northern publications. The apparent sober lifestyle of an average northern journalist, to some southerners, means a lack of the confrontation that some people think is needed to probe our political leaders to attain good governance and accountability especially during the fight for democracy in Nigeria.
Luckily however, a new crop of upward mobile professionals in law, journalism, banking, information technology, advertising, etc have realized there is the need to widen their horizon about there feelings for northern publications. In this regard, it has been discovered that if northern newspapers are able to sell 70% of their print run in the north as its core market then it’s likely to attract advertisement patronage from blue-chip companies in the south.
(iii) The Logistic of Distribution.
Ordinarily one would have thought that Abuja for example is central and perhaps equidistant to all parts of the country and would make distribution of newspapers easier to all places. However, the relative lack of adequate aviation services in northern airports has made timely distribution of late editions very difficult. The long distances to other towns by road have not helped matters either. Northern publishers have had to contend with distributing to core markets during the nights on dangerous roads.
(iv) Ownership and Editorial Position.
Most readers of newspapers and magazines in Nigeria believe that northern publications have chosen hard line approaches on matters of politics and religion as they affect them. They have often demonstrated a passionate feeling that northern publications are not liberal, independent, fair, and balanced, and therefore tend to toe an ideological line that indicate the agenda of their owners.
However, what is liberal, fair, and balanced in a multi ethno-religious society like Nigeria depends on the point of view of the person expressing it. Thus, the man in Maiduguri , Sokoto, Kano etc may differ in opinion on what is balanced and fair as compared to the man in Ibadan or Enugu. However, an independent, liberal and balanced newspaper’s comment has no other names than what it could be called especially when readers are prepared to drop their religious and ethnic toga when forming their opinions.
No wonder that in advanced societies like the UK it is a fact that while newspapers are mostly financially independent of governments or party affiliations, they can express obvious political leanings in their editorial coverage, which may derive from proprietorial and other non-party political influences. The issue of ownership therefore should not have been a problem since most newspapers reflect these leanings in their editorial postures.
What is not desirable is for a newspaper to consistently support the government of the day at the detriment of the civil society. Admittedly, some northern publication have made these mistakes and at their own peril. Those publications that took this position lost readership.
In addition, these papers eventually lost government patronage from the time the publisher could no longer court the men in the corridors of power where they usually got free funding to complement their newspaper operations.
It is a challenge therefore for a northern publication to remain with the people rather than with the government at any political level as a survival strategy and as a responsibility, they owe to promoting good governance and accountability. Yet, this does not mean that northern publications should be combative and tend to react to the daily condemnation of issues by their southern colleagues so that they would not be guilty of the same offence they are accusing the southern press of. What is required therefore is a sort of a ‘middle point’ approach in dealing with contentious issues at most times.
To avoid a situation where northern publishers will use their newspapers as an instrument of militant protest, new publication must avoid the one-dimensional approach in their management composition where journalists occupy executive suites without a blend of partners at the executive level who could oversee the operations and constantly evaluate strategic plans and actions from a business point of view.
(v) Under-Capitalization.
Most newspapers in Nigeria are under- capitalized at inception. Thus, many own neither their printing presses nor the premises they operate in as at the time they were established. In the north, the situation is made worse by the unwillingness of the few moneybags to invest in a business venture that would take some time to yield returns especially looking at the dismal low performance and disappearance of the few titles that were established in the past.
If a newspaper should own its press and the premises from day one of operations, it would require an initial capital outlay of about 200 million naira as at today and perhaps about 150 million as at 1998 when the Daily Trust made its debut. However, we started with an initial capital outlay that was as small as what our editor-in- chief once described as an amount just enough for some rich Nigerians to take abroad for a holiday with their families.
However, just as it is difficult to secure the necessary funding for most businesses in the developing world it is imperative that modern publishers must no longer be averse to taking the risk of private newspaper ownership in northern Nigeria. One area that intending northern publishers could explore is forging partnership with related companies. Forming strategic alliance with other printing companies, colour separation outfits etc may just fit the bill.
Conclusion.
The emerging readership culture in the north, perhaps forced by the daily bashing from newspapers elsewhere, could help to strengthen and accommodate new publications in the region. Indeed the premature death of newspapers in Nigeria is not peculiar to the north alone.
In recent times, some newspapers that were started in Lagos have gone burst or in a crisis to survive. This is in spite of the huge financial outlay some of them started with. The future of successful newspapers in the north, therefore, is predictably bright if the necessary resources are harnessed to do it right.
Isiaq Ajibola, the Executive Director of Media Trust Ltd. presented this paper at the ‘Professional Platform’ of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, (NIPR), Abuja Chapter.
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