I couldn’t describe the sort of evening it was, even though I was right there in the thick of things. I looked around, waved at a few colleagues and reminisced on how long it had taken us to get to that very moment. Naturally, being stuck in a huge hall for a conference most of the day does that to you.
That was how I felt as the Media Sustainability Conference, held in Abuja, neared its end. The moment was surreal because it was the last major capacity building activity of the Nigeria Media Innovation Program (NAMIP), which had run for three and a half years.
Engaging with media entrepreneurs, having long and sometimes uncomfortable conversations, and reaching out to knowledge experts to help solve our participants’ problems over the past couple of years has been both inspiring and instructive. It had been a privilege to be a part of the growth arc of some of the most mission-driven and passionate media leaders on the continent.
The easy part of the work was not having to explain to people what public interest media meant. Not in Nigeria especially. This was because Nigeria as a country has been home to a strong tradition of public interest media in all forms and formats; from student-driven publications to national dailies. The distribution also ranges from WhatsApp groups and TikTok handles to digital, TV and radio. However, the story doesn’t end there.
Due to the entrepreneurial nature of the Nigerian citizen, new media projects are launched almost monthly. At the Media Sustainability Conference, a veteran journalist made the remark that we are in a phase where it’s almost “one journalist – one platform”. Many people giggled at the remark, but almost no one disagreed.
According to the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation, in 2023 Nigeria had 740 operational radio stations and, with 67 newly approved at the time, the number must be much higher now. Nigeria also has many TV channels and an uncountable number of digital natives (website, podcasts, social media publishers). Hearing these numbers, you would be excused if you assumed that the Nigerian media ecosystem was fully mature. However, there is still a lot of growing to do.
When it comes to access to the right information, there are still many news deserts in the country and like most of governance and commerce, the media also congregates in few major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, leaving subregional (state-level) media companies, few and far between, isolated and vulnerable.
Looking ahead, it is becoming clear that public interest actors who publish on creative platforms like TikTok with a huge young demography can influence opinions, policy and set agendas. Some of our NAMIP participants enjoyed a lot of success by employing strategies that prioritised such social media platforms over other conventional methods for distribution and engagement. I haven’t even touched on the AI discussion, with its seemingly endless influences and opportunities. Everything in the Nigerian media ecosystem, like many others in the world, seems new and evolving and I believe the kind of support offered by media development actors should be designed in the same spirit of growth and exploration. And, at the risk of sounding immodest, I am proud to say that we at NAMIP did just that.
And we learnt that if we approach media with that mindset, we might be able to address the gaps in media support that we noticed.
Some of these shortcomings and their corresponding recommendations are:
- Press freedom: There is a need to strengthen institutions and storytelling that engages with press and information freedom issues at a policy level.
- Sub-regional media development: Providing institutional support for young and passionate creators and entrepreneurs who are interested in serving Nigeria’s budding young demographic is key at this time. Especially projects focused on citizen and youth-focused accountability journalism with a strong audience development and social media strategy. This should be done at all scales, whether the platform operates on a national or local scale.
- Profitable distribution at the local level: The development of community platforms is vital. Most news at that level is consumed via WhatsApp, irrespective of the initial distribution channel; WhatsApp is how media build reach. AI adoption should be focused on optimizing this value chain and unlocking potential revenues.
- Talent development and retention: There are baseline content creation competences necessary to thrive. Organizations must build their revenue capacity to be able to hold and attract talent within their ecosystems and building talent pipelines in such communities are vital.
Finally, it is important to remember that sustainability is more than revenue. It’s content quality, ethics, distribution, people and technological agility as well. At different growth levels, every media organization must figure out what the future of their practise looks like with respect to these factors.
I’ll end by spelling out a thought on sustainability I coined while preparing for the Media Sustainability Conference. The pathway to sustainability entails achieving clarity and setting growth goals via an overall strategy which addresses:
- Products
- People
- Revenue
- Technology
Signing off,
Deji Adekunle