TRADITIONAL MEDIA SEEING RED

TRADITIONAL media houses in Trinidad and Tobago are seeing financially difficult times. 

And the future does not look any brighter. 

In fact, online media and the depressed national economy have become a potent twin blow against long-standing media groups, including the 104-year-old Guardian newspaper. 

Guardian Media, which also owns television and radio, and One Caribbean Media (OCM), which has a Caribbean footprint, are venturing in a variety of allied and subsidiary activities in order to stay financially afloat. 

Still, Guardian Media has just suffered two straight fiscal quarters of losses, of a total of $4.3 million. 

The company carries a consolidated balance sheet so the respective financial performance of each unit was not revealed. 

The Express newspaper, a member of the OCM group, touted a “surge” in mid-year profit of 75 per cent, but the pre-tax bottom line was $10.9 million, a fraction of previous returns. 

These are two examples of recent dismal financial returns of conventional media houses. 

The respective chairs of Guardian Media and OCM attributed the challenging times to the tough economic state resulting from Covid-19. 

But the marketplace for traditional media has been dwindling globally over the past few years, and experts anticipate that advertising would continue to be spread into online news services.  

Television and radio stations are also barely getting by, with advertising rates being chopped to historic lows. 

Most of Trinidad and Tobago’s near-40 radio stations are owned by a total of five major organisations, and the few remaining single operators are in danger of going financially belly-up. 

These stations may soon fall into the lap of large conglomerates, such as Guardian Media, which operates six stations and receives 60 per cent of all advertising from its parent group, AnsaMcAl. 

AsaMcAl, the country’s largest conglomerate, owns more than 50 subsidiaries, many of them involved in retail sales. 

The group is the first T&T investor to venture into media in the financially-booming Guyana, by taking ownership of a struggling radio station. 

Media observers see the investment as an initial salvo in AnsaMcAl’s strategic move to influence high-powered decision-making in that Caricom country. 

The Guyanese economy is expanding at record levels. 

There is a surfeit of local cable television stations, which are each jockeying for viewership and advertising dollars. 

State-owned TTT has been recording major financial losses in recent years, and depends on taxpayers for at least $20 million in annual subventions. 

The station’s viewership has been confirmed as lower than Tobago’s Channel 5. 

The programming is largely aimed at promoting the government. 

There has not been any industry-wide audience survey in seven years, but available data indicates that advertising revenues have been reduced by as much as 50 per cent during that period. 

Declines have occurred in each successive year. 

Some advertising agencies have gone out of business and others, with fewer clients, have become creative to remain alive. 

Digital media has attracted a large piece of the advertising pie because of their confirmed and expanding audiences. 

More and more advertisers are opting for each-to-access social media platforms. 

Viewership, listenership and readership of all traditional media streams have all been severely reduced, and in each case there have been job losses. 

The availability of news and entertainment products online would continue to influence media consumers, according to experts. 

A recent survey in the United States confirmed that patronage of all traditional media streams has continuously fallen over the past few years. 

Newspapers have suffered dramatic collapse in readership and are aggressively seeking to earn advertising through their online products. 

Some major newspapers, like New York Times, are putting up pay-walls for their exclusive online content. 

Some international analysts are predicting the eventual death of customary forms of media, as Facebook, smart phones, YouTube and a slew of other digital forms take increased ascendancy. 

One report stated: “The death of traditional media comes from a short-sighted view and a bottom line balance sheet approach to news.” 

Unless traditional media owners could urgently and effectively reverse the current trend, they are likely to continue to see financially red.