The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Bhutan in 2013 had 12 newspapers, 6 radio stations and 2 magazines. In the last 10 years 5 private newspapers, 3 radio stations and 2 news magazines have shut down leaving behind 7 newspapers and BBS.
Until 2010 the situation was fine with 10 newspapers all doing well. However, government austerity measures in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013-14 and 2018 disproportionately targeted government advertisements which created the crisis.
Government advertisements make a huge chunk of revenue for newspapers. Bhutan’s private sector is small and cannot support the media sector on its own.
A major challenge for all is the expanding use of e-procurement in government agencies. This has led to a dramatic decline in government advertisements like construction Tenders. The remaining advertisements go mainly to the state-owned media. However, in the bigger picture the source itself is shrinking for all.
Talking about the solution, almost all governments across the world support the media directly or indirectly. These include direct financial support like in France, Italy and many European countries to newspaper print subsidy in India. Even the most capitalist economy in the form of USA gives postal and tax breaks to its press, including government advertisements as support.
It is ironical that Bhutan with its small private sector and small market considers support to media and especially private media to be unnatural.
The former two governments and the current government approved the Media Enterprise Development Budget subsidy for private newspapers which has had the most positive impact of all media programs till date. The ESP fund can also make a major positive impact in capacity enhancement.
The MoF should explain to government agencies that e-procurement does not mean not advertising with the media as this is the biggest issue.
Advertisement is shrinking and most advertisement is given to state media as per the Private Newspapers Sustainability Report, commissioned by the then Department of Information and Media (DoIM) in 2015.
The main solution proposed by the report to help the private newspapers is reengineering the distribution of government advertising funds through an Advertising Placement Board (APB) which would decide how much funds should be allocated between state owned media and private media. Advertisement would then be given based on reach. At the same time the source must also be made larger.
And I believe that good journalism can make our world a better place.-Christiane Amanpour