NMG profit falls 94% from Sh. 856 million to Sh. 48 million

Business
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Massive dip attributed to declined revenues from advertising due to the pandemic.

Revenue shrunk from Sh. 9 billion in 2019 to Sh. 6.8 billion. Net assets fell in value from Sh. 12.1 billion at the end of 2019 to Sh. 11.82 billion at the end of 2020.

The media house has been digitizing its products and has already launched paywalls to boost revenues. Its flagship paywall currently has a reported 50,000 paid subscribers.

NMG has been on the decline for many years now. Profits have been tanking since 2013, which was their peak.

Part of the reason is the digital disruption brought about by the internet and its impact on the consumption of traditional print, radio and TV media. This has affected all traditional media houses across the world.

Secondly, NMG’s BOD is notoriously composed of myopic old wazees who are resistant to change. Board chairman Kiboro famously quipped that his grandson has no time for the paper and traditional news consumption. Shortly thereafter, he commissioned a sh2bn expansion of the Msa Rd printing press. You might also remember NMG pioneering products like N-Soko (before OLX) and Nation Hela (before e-commerce really took off). But the products never got wings because they were not given the full backing to grow and the right teams. Look at KTalk. Instead of outrightly fighting Mandazi Moto, they should have realized that yenyewe, there’s demand for ePapers but not at that current pricing. They should have approached the same market with same content but at very affordable, if not rock bottom prices. Right now every Kenyan who read gazetis would have been rocking their ePaper app (kaching!!!) but in that period, Kenyans found a myriad of other ways of getting their news.

Another tragedy for NMG is that they have never gotten it right with Radio. Nation FM, Easy FM, QFM etc have NEVER made any return for NMG in 20 plus years and at some point NMG were even contemplating closing Nation FM altogether. However, radio is KING in Kenya as evidenced by RMS, Radio Africa etc.

Finally, NMG has been having struggles with the State in recent years and any business in such a position here in Kenya is doomed. It started with them fighting the Digital Migration in Feb 2015. NMG, with all their might, did not even bother to make a decent application to be the Digital Licence Distributor coz they were fighting the change rather than embrace inevitability which had finally come. NMG is also a direct competitor to Mediamax, owned by the President’s family, who print a free newspaper that directly hits NMG’s DN, it’s main cash cow. Govt also decided to print its own paper (MyGov) and not commit to clear hundreds of millions of NMG advertising debt accrued over years.

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Hiyo gazeti ya bure ya uhuru hunishangaza sana

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They would adjusted the price of newspapers to drive sales but right now its better somebody buy a loaf bread over newspaper

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NMG profits have been plummeting for the last 5 years. They should not blame the pandemic entirely.

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Nmg shares are at their lowest, fundamentals are bad don’t see them coming out of this hole lakini[ATTACH=full]362120[/ATTACH]

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News print is almost dead and to add salt to the wound they ask me to register/login first kwa digital platform before nisome story za slyqueens and single mothers!

Too bad for the current employees - first casualties when the company profits dwindle ni hao.

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NMG has no future. Too rigid and full of people whose only motivation is the high salaries they get. It’s an old boy’s club.

Expecting a socialite like Mutuma Mathiu to lead it into the 21st century is being too optimistic.

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You must be a trader. Nice to know tuko wengi huku.

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i doubt this. i think they just want to give investors hope

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:D:D mpaka siku hizi unalipa kusoma link

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This is where they messed up big time. That high tech press is usually idle for up to 22 hours a day.
If you look at leading Newspapers like New York post, they are phasing out printing and going digital.
If I were their advisers I would tell them to give the paper out FOC and just capitalize on ads.

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Hakuna venye tunaweza short stocks za hii kampuni tukafunge.

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design ya Gamestop?

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hio ujinga ya kuniambia nilipe ndio nisome gutter press website has made us readers bitter , and we will celebrate its death

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Competitor wa NMG ni admean.

If media is this well paying, I can’t imagine how much money owner of ktalk brings in.

Yaani payroll of four people (maredio, shamakhokho, daktari na admean) and it’s free and I get all my news in one place. Better yet, it is moderated by peers no editor on Gov’t payroll alafu eye cleansing.

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I don’t think this is the NMG chart though.

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There’s a time those shares were trading a 250 bob a pop. How the mighty fall

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This is a company in Thailand.

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Vipii Mzee Mjinga? Umepata bundles eeh?

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True. And the reason is that internet access, advertising, corporate ownership, and social media are playing as huge contributors to the decline in newspaper production. The invention of the internet meant losses in revenue in print newspaper. … In short, newspaper circulation has been declining for the whole decade. They can try subscription, but the news is the news and as long as I can find a hint of what I need, I’m not paying a dime more to read someone else’s opinion on what I already know.