People Profit? Communication and Change in a Commercial and Fragmented Mass Communication Environment

The changing mass communication landscape

The mass communication scene in most developing countries is rapidly changing. The key decision makers in print and broadcasting organisations in Africa and Asia now join their colleagues in Latin America in being driven by commercial considerations. With examples from broadcasting, where the most recent moves have taken place, there are three major factors driving this trend from a stated emphasis on public good and nation building to break-even and profit bottom lines.

1. A growing number of developing countries are deregulating their media. This permits the issuing of licenses to private companies and community organisations to establish radio and television stations which compete with each other and the state controlled and managed media. Ghana and South Africa are two countries where these changes have taken place with rapid speed.
2. In response to the restrictions on overall public spending governments are increasingly asking their media organisations, at best to make a profit that contributes to the public purse, at a minimum to break even financially. This has them competing with the private broadcasters for audience ratings and advertising revenue. In Kenya, for example, the government owned Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation has established music focused FM stations to compete with the recently licensed private FM stations. The KBC stations are instructed that turning a profit is their only criteria.
3. In some cases, such as Jamaica, the government has sold state owned radio and television stations to private sector companies.

Audience implications

These developments have contributed to the growing fragmentation of peoples' media access patterns. The days of the automatic national audience for the state broadcaster with a press and broadcasting monopoly, are clearly in the past in a growing number of countries. People have many more frequency and channel choices. In addition to the broadcasting developments within countries there is also increasing penetration of external media. Cable television [eg Multi-Choice in Africa], international radio and television satellite broadcasters [CNN, BBC, VOA, RFI, DW], the internet and international editions of news papers provide additional choices for those who can afford them. The growth of the commercial sector in many countries has resulted in the expansion of forms of communication associated with product marketing. There are more advertising agencies, billboards, sponsorship of sports and cultural events and other kinds of communication.

The fragmentation can be seen in a number of ways. Commercial broadcasters have targeted those people who can afford the products they advertise. Therefore they have focussed on the urban areas. For most rural populations, little has changed or is changing. The external media are only available to those can afford them. Therefore, the elites tend to receive different news to the general population. These and other fragmentations are likely to worsen.

Strategic Implications

Whichever way one cuts this mass communication cake it is potentially a very expensive slice for development agencies if they continue with their present communication strategies.

The commercial imperatives mean that free air time for everything from compelling PSAs to highly entertaining soap operas will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate. Rates for air time and newspaper space are rising and will continue to rise as broadcasting and print organisations seek to maximise their income. It will be hard to negotiate discounts. As each of the media companies struggles to survive and grow they will not want undercut their rate card. All of this assumes that the commercially driven radio, TV and newspapers will want the material developed by development organisations. In a competitive media environment they will all be trying to establish their identity and niche with the audiences they are attracting. Our products might not fit.

Even if development organisations can afford or negotiate air time and print space for their PSAs, variety shows, documentaries, soap operas, promotions, inserts and other mass communication products they will not have automatic national coverage. The audience is fragmented as discussed above.

Therefore a communication strategy based on fully funding and producing mass communication products will, on these grounds alone, be decreasingly cost effective.

The elements detailed below are a proposed strategic approach to communication in this new communication environemnt. Essentially, it requires three main approaches:

1. The application of astute judgements to identify the strengths of the development organisation and the central interests of potential partner organisations or companies that have communication capacity of interest to the development organisation.
2. The ability to negotiate a working relationship and package that satisfies all parties.
3. Identifying and developing low cost programming interventions that attract the attention and involvement of partners and encourage/motivate them to address the development issues of interest in the course of their mainstream work.

The menu of possible action steps for this approach includes:

Strategic Communication

Partnership Strategies with Commercial Media

A. Information Needs - the ongoing collection of the necessary information required to identify potential partners and successfully negotiate working relationships

B. Partnership Platforms - creating ongoing opportunities to prompt action by commercial mass communication organisations and to agree specific work activities