ADVERTISING AS A REVENUE SURVIVAL STRATEGY FOR MASS MEDIA ORGANIZATION WITH THE ANAMBRA STATE BROADCASTING SERVICE IN FOCUS

CHAPTER ONE

          INTRODUCTION

Nigeria’s economic downturn has affected all spheres of the nation’s life from the federal, state and local government and all of its associated body. At the arrival of a new government in Anambra State led by Chef Willie Obiano, a pragmatic change geared towards repositioning the Anambra Broadcasting Service was made with the introduction of a foreign based expect, Mr. Uche Nworah who quickly tapped into a booming economy to start accruing revenue through sourcing for advertisements and attracting investments and going into ventures. This opened the governments eye to the rate of revenue that could be internally generated through the long over looked Anambra State Broadcasting Service hence they influx of cash into the broadcast house. It was all good till the Buhari’s administration emerged and brought about a constant economic downturn in the country with failed economic policies thus resulting to a lot of austerity measures in the government and various business organizations with a direct effect on the Anambra Broadcasting Service resulting to slash in monthly allocation to the broadcast agency. Realizing this, the agency’s boss resorted to sourcing for advertisements which was also impeded by the same economic challenges been faced in the country thus affecting returns through advertisements hence a low turnout in revenue accruing to the Station through advertisements.

It is this challenge that has brought about the need to inquire into the role advertisements place in revenue survival strategy of mass media houses in Nigeria with ABS in focus as an association between the two is inevitably linked.

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Various writers have viewed advertising from different perspectives. Advertising is a tool of marketing for communicating ideas and information about goods and services to an identified group, which employs paid space or time in the media or uses another communication vehicle to carry its message. It openly identifies the advertiser and his relationship to the sales effort (Wanoff, 1997). Advertising can also be defined as any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor (Bennet, 2006).

Advertising is any paid massage presented through various media, such as television, radio, magazines, newspaper, or billboards by an identified source. Advertising is a non-personal communication paid for by an identified sponsor who is relayed through various media with the aim of influencing people’s behavior towards the advertiser’s products and services at the lowest possible cost. (APCON, 2002). Frank (2005) defined advertising as the aim to persuade people to buy. Advertising as the dissemination of information concerning an idea, service or product to compel action in accordance with the intent of the advertiser. Advertising is a controlled identifiable information and persuasion by means of mass communication media (Borden, 2007).

Advertising is the non-personal communication of marketing-related information in a target audience, usually paid for by in order to reach the specific objectives of the sponsor. (Bennett, 2006). Advertising is a message paid for by an identified sponsor and delivered through some medium of mass communication. It is not neutral, it is not unbiased; it says: I am going to sell you a product or an idea’. (Rusell, Rusell and Lane 2006).

Going by the various definitions considered above, advertising is an indicator of the growth, betterment and perfection of the business environment. Not only does advertising mirror the business environment, it also affects and gets affected by our style of life. It is not at all surprising that advertising is one of the most closely scrutinized of all business institutions. In today’s environment, advertisers are closely examined by the target audience for whom the advertisement is meant for in the society. (Kazmi, 2005). Modern advertising is largely a product of the twentieth century, however, communication has been a part of the selling process ever since the exchange of goods between people started. (Kazmi, 2005).

Advertising, no doubt, is the fulcrum on which successful enterprise, especially in a free market and competitive economy revolves. It can be conceived as a society’s central nervous system. Advertising serves to communicate an idea to a large number of people in an attempt to convince them to take a certain action. It is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services.

There is no gain saying the fact that the market forces under which most news organizations operate create a conflict between journalistic values and organizational revenue goals.

Dating back to the history of Nigerian media the Lagos Weekly Record by John Payne Jackson was able to survive until late 18″* century in the face of low patronage, readership, amateurism, and stiff competition that characterized the early press in Nigeria because of government adverts placed in it. The 150 pounds a year advertisement gave the Weekly Record about 400 pounds in 1900 (Fred Omu, 1978).

Today, the trend is still the same. The media men and advertising practitioners cannot still cope without advertisements. One dominant trend pervading the entire Nigerian media spectrum whether it is public or privately owned is hyper-commercialism. The media are now commercial-based. In recent years, media programmes have become dominated by commercials.

Media organisations however argue that advertising is one of the major sources of

Generating revenue in the media. Private media organizations rely on advert to generate funds for survival. They have no choice other than to pay attention to advert messages because of poor funding, the increasing need to fulfil their obligation to employees, take care of their production costs and operating facilities and in some cases, they have to rely on advertising as a means of generating funds to meet their financial needs or obligations.

Overdependence on advertisement poses grave danger to the integrity of the media themselves and disservice to their audiences. However, some areas of internal and external influences that continue to be of interest to mass communication researchers are; dependable media advertising sources, pressure on the media, socio-economic forces impacting on advertising, ethical practices and media sustainability. It is against the backdrop of the foregoing that this research problem which informed the topic of this paper is premised.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is agreed that advertising is the most dependable source of revenue for the mass media.

However, in their craze to generate revenue for media survival or sustainability some socio economic forces do alter ethical advertising practices.

Media organization’s dependence on advertising revenue makes them highly susceptible to advertiser pressure, with a high propensity of throwing ethical practices overboard. The problem of this research is straightforward; the Anambra Broadcasting service has over the years depended largely on advertisements for survival. There over reliance on the government s not unconnected with the fact that it is a media tool for the government of the day to propagate their policies and programs and play the government fiddle and bidding. However, this singular act has for ages deterred patronage and ability to attract revenue through advertisements capable of running the station and yielding some returns to the government since rival parties cannot have an equal right on the station views and programs. Audience is also not enough to attract investors to advertise on a platform considered highly political and boring with very minimum audience outreach and listenership loyalty. Even though when companies want to advertise, the bureaucracy of the station affect their trust and there is often a high advert rate and problems of neglect of payments made since the advertisements are either not aired or are aired at the wrong time due to deliberate and un-deliberate interruptions in broadcast. All of these problems put together are what has necessitated this study of an inquest into how the Anambra Broadcasting Service can raise her revenue and ensure her survival through advertisements.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The general objective of the study is on advertising as a revenue survival strategy for mass media organization with the Anambra State Broadcasting Service in focus. The specific objectives are:

1. To determine the extent at which Anambra Broadcast Service get advertisement.
2. To determine the challenges of advertising on Anambra Broadcast Service.
3. To identify ways through which advertisement on Anambra Broadcast Service can generate revenue.
4. To determine ways through which Anambra Broadcast Service can generate more revenue through advertisements.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. In what the extent does Anambra Broadcast Service get advertisement?
2. What are the challenges of advertising on Anambra Broadcast Service?
3. In what ways through which advertisement on Anambra Broadcast Service can generate revenue?
4. In what ways can Anambra Broadcast Service generate more revenue through advertisements?

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This study will help psychologists and academics interested in finding out reasons why people advertise on different media houses and how such advertisements can be used to generate revenue with which the organization can be sustained. They will also identify how to avoid all the antecedent problems and constraints of advertisement starvation on the media houses.

The research would then be readily available for referencing by scholars, students and practitioners for academic purposes.

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work bothers itself basically on advertising as a revenue survival strategy for mass media organization with the Anambra Broadcasting Service in view.

1.7     DEFINITION OF TERMS

Advertising: This is the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity.

Mass Media: This includes all mediums used in the dissemination of information, entertainment, educating and enlightening a large number of persons at the same time and may include print (newspapers, magazines etc), electronic media (television, radio etc) and social media (face book, you tube etc).

Organization: This is a social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or to pursue collective goals. They are open systems-they affect and are affected by their environment.

Survival Strategy: Ways through which the continued existence of a firm, an idea or a concept can be guaranteed or ensured.

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