AS TMR Media Sdn Bhd, the publisher of The Malaysian Reserve (TMR), announced the ‘unsurprising’ news that April 29 shall mark the last issue of its print edition, its group editor and managing director Mohamad Azlan Jaafar rightly pointed out that migration to the digital version is unlikely to cure the woes of especially mainstream Malaysian media houses either.
This is because large corporations in Malaysia nowadays channel a substantial portion of their advertisement and promotion spending to US tech search engines, social media, video channels and related services.
“Despite a spike in digital readership, pageviews and unique visitors, advertisement revenues for digital platforms have been negligible,” commented Azlan in a message to thank subscribers who have been supportive of the newspaper since it debuted in May 2007.
“They are more supportive of these tech giants than local legitimate media organisations which have contributed to their business’ success.”
As Azlan rightly pointed out, European governments have instituted laws that force US tech firms to share a percentage of advertisement revenue generated from the region with legitimate content and news organisations.
Such laws are aimed to protect Europe’s news and media industry as well as ensuring the independence of their media. “In Malaysia, we either do not have the political will nor intelligence to enforce such laws,” quipped Azlan.
The Edge Media Group publisher and group chief executive Datuk Ho Kay Tat, too, has made a pertinent point when he raised the issue about the rise of the digital duopoly (which has now become “triopoly”) that is destroying the news business in Malaysia.
According to eMarketer insider intelligence, US digital ad spending will soar past US$200 bil in 2021, marking 38.3% growth from 2020. The triopoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon will make up 64% of all US digital ad spending which was about the same share they possessed in 2020.
The US digital ad spending trend will be closely reflected in other economies as well whether the publisher is operating out of Europe, Asia, Middle East or Africa.
Another point that should be raised is that the proliferation of social media platforms has created fierce competition whereby every Tom, Dick and Harry today can consider themselves a “journalist” by virtue of able to report any major events on a real-time basis (even with photos/video) with the only distinction being the credibility of their story sources.
Such development has put, in the words of National Journalism Laureate Tan Sri Johan Jaaffar, “serious journalism at stake”.
“Media practitioners need to make adjustments. And adaptations. Or they will perish,” he pointed out during National Media Industry 4.0 Forum entitled “Rebooting the Media Industry: Present and Future Challenges” on Sept 26, 2019.
“The death of the newspaper is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. But in years to come, I am looking only at the survival of very few newspapers. The great days of newspapers have long gone. They will become smaller and even less influential. But only the best will survive.
“The news media organisation is at the crossroad. No one can predict what will happen from now on. Are the threats seen now merely the tip of an iceberg? The next big question asked by buyers and subscribers of newspapers is, why do we need newspapers when we can get news elsewhere? Are we still relevant?” – April 21, 2022
