The State of Innovation and Media Viability in East Africa: From Indepth Media House Surveys

"All over the world media houses are faced with the challenge of devising strategies to make sure they survive and thrive in the face of a rapidly changing ecosystem."

This report provides an analysis of the news media landscape and operating environment in three East African countries: Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. It forms part of the Media Futures East Africa Project, which is jointly implemented by the Aga Khan University's Graduate School of Media and Communications and Deutsche Welle Akademie, and it sets out to investigate the state of innovation and media viability in the three countries. This research report represents the findings of the second phase of the project's research process, which seeks to examine factors at the organisational level that impact media viability. Specifically, it analysed eight major variables: newsroom structure and resources, media ownership and business models, organisational capacity, innovation culture, journalism culture, financial trends and results, content quality, and COVID-19. The first research phase studied the ecosystem of East African news media organisations and explored the political, economic, social, technological, and community environment of media in the three countries. (See Related Summaries below to access these research reports.)

As stated in the report, "Media houses globally are grappling with how best to produce quality content and remain financially viable in the wake of shrinking revenues, technological disruptions, the emergence of peripheral content creators, competition for advertisement revenues from big tech platforms, the COVID-19 pandemic and a myriad of other changes in the media ecosystem. Despite these challenges, it is in the interest of the public that news media organisations produce quality content and do so in a financially sustainable fashion. Media viability, that is, producing quality journalism in a financially sustainable way, is therefore a growing area of focus" - and also the focus of the Media Futures East Africa Project. The research conducted by the project is an important part of developing innovative approaches that can ensure media viability in the region. Innovative approaches are, for example, being sought to address the following areas: stable sources of revenue that provide resources to support excellent journalism; fragmented audiences; evolving technology; and the need to create excellent content across multiple platforms that incorporates the voices of not just top journalists but also influencers and citizens.

The data for this report were gathered via an in-depth survey of media managers and journalists from 437 media houses across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania from 2020 to 2021. The report presents a snapshot of the following topics, with most results broken down by country and media industry sector:

• News media organisations' age, ownership and general business model.
• News media finance and likely sustainability, including: organisations' financial condition in 2019 and the trends in their finances going into 2019; the number and type of sources they use for revenue and their level of dependence on different sources; and their staffs' perception of their sustainability as news producers over the next five years.
• News organisations' target markets in terms of geography, language, and types of content produced.
• News organisations' internal innovation cultures as assessed by their staff, the relationship between innovation culturem and organisational performance in other areas.
• News organisations' organisational capacities in management, revenue generation, technology, research, and content creation, as assessed by managers and journalists.
• Managers' and journalists' assessment of the quality of journalism content the news organisations produce, and the factors influencing that quality.
• The degree to which East African journalists and news organisations are affected by attempts at intimidation or interference in journalistic independence.
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the finances and practices of East African news organisations.

Key highlights of the results include the following:

• The East African media sector is considerably young. Save for the print news media organisations that are predominantly 11 years and older, about 60% of TV, radio, digital, and multimedia platforms have existed for ten years or less.
• A significant percentage (60%) of the region's news media organisations (NMOs) are independently owned, especially in Uganda and Tanzania.
• Commercial advertising was the top source of revenue used by most of the NMOs in East Africa across the sectors, while government funding was used by a mere 6% of the NMOs.
• Slightly less than 50% of NMOs had their journalists provided with access to the equipment and technology they need and access to training to stay current with journalistic techniques.
• About half of the news media organisations in the three countries target the regional (in-country) market - that is, provinces, districts, and counties.
• Generally, NMOs in the region rate themselves highly - at over 60% - as far as innovation is concerned.
• Journalism quality - boiled down to editorial independence, sufficient and regular payment for newsroom staff, and good journalistic practice (e.g., fact checking) - was analysed against the NMOs' financial trends.
• Pressures on news media organisations are still present. In each country, the news media organisations agreed that in 2019, at least once, their journalists had been arrested, physically attacked, and/or verbally attacked due to journalistic work.
• The organisations agreed they had been compelled to publish or kill stories at least once in the same period due to business or political pressure. Ugandan NMOs recorded the highest number of such incidents, while Tanzania reported the lowest.
• Across the region, the pandemic had a negative impact on financial revenues. Additionally, there was a decrease in demand for advertising.
• On a positive note, the pandemic positively impacted audience numbers. Most media organisations across the region reported increased audience numbers - likely reflecting the increased need for information during crises.

In terms of solutions, the report makes the point that each media organisation is unique and therefore requires different solutions to viability. Nevertheless, it highlights some general factors that may aid in carrying further the thinking about media viability in East Africa:

• The young age of news media organisations is an opportunity to think innovatively about how to tap into unfilled niches in the media sector and hopefully, in the process, have each media house stand a better chance of survival.
• From a regulatory perspective, the prevalence of the non-profit/community media model continues to make the case for actively strengthening legislation that facilitates the growth of the third media.
• The fact that about half of the news-producing NMOs categorise themselves as having insufficient newsroom resources as far as equipment, technology, and training are concerned suggests that there is still a need to look into equipping newsrooms technologically and continuing efforts to upskill journalists in the region.
• There is a need to look at sufficient remuneration for journalists if media houses in the region want to retain high-quality staff who will produce high-quality content in the long run.
• Editorial independence is another area to keep in mind. From the recorded negative incidents experienced by journalists and media outlets in the region, journalist safety and media freedom, in general, are still areas that need to continue being strengthened.
• In addition, media house diversity, upskilling of journalists to deal with digital disruption, and audience research are further areas in which to continue focusing efforts.