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It has been announced that your time at Nation Media Group comes to an end at the end of December 2023. It has been quite a run. Do recap for us your time at Monitor Publications Limited.
It’s been a significant journey in terms of what Monitor Publications was, and what Monitor Publications is, now. When I took over, we had just had a terrible year⏤2014. I think that was the worst year in many years. So from March 2015 when I joined, it was, really just about consolidating, putting systems in place, and focusing on the small things. The small things that take care of the bigger things in the long term. Such as fixing KFM. Fixing KFM from the kind “the world’s gonna die” content to “feeling entertained” when you listen; then getting the formula for Dembe FM right and trying to get rid of those witch doctor adverts and killing that kind of advertising and looking for new markets.
We also worked on fixing the Daily Monitor; fixing the editorial side, fixing the basics, and putting systems in place. Such as having set paginations which were lacking. It was being run on a sort of cowboy basis. Some editors would for example kill stories deliberately, but I dealt with all those things. If I felt that we were selling our soul as editorial, I would come down heavily on anyone. I also stopped the kind of building of PR into many of the stories at the time. There was a lot of that. Many of the big advertisers had started to reward the journalists directly as opposed to paying for advertising.
At the end of that first year, I think we broke even. Although in terms of profit, it was our smallest profit year, it was a huge difference that we were at least profitable and it was also important that we had gotten back on the right track. In 2016, we had significant improvement and at the end of 2017, we got more profitable and even paid a bonus for the first time in 12 years to all Monitor Publications staff. They hadn’t had a bonus in 12 years!
2018 was a very good year too. Then Aggie Konde resigned from Africa Broadcasting Uganda Limited (ABUL)⏤ NTV Uganda, and from that time, NMG Group CEO Joe Muganda said he wanted to run Uganda as one company. But leaving the companies as a separate entity probably was the hardest part of my job⏤ mixing two very different cultures⏤ NTV has a particular culture; we are number one, we are the top and we do things in spectacular style. The Monitor Publications, which has always been seen as the weak cousin that lives in the industrial area while NTV is the better brother in Serena Hotel. Trying to blend those cultures to work together as one; to drive the concept of one newsroom, one finance department, one commercial department⏤ that’s taken a lot of effort and a lot of time to get to the point now where there is significant light at the end of the tunnel.
Again, when we took over responsibility for “ABUL” it was just putting systems and policies in place. We also re-looked at the editorial content, to kind of get rid of the ‘doom and gloom content’.
We had some good editors at the time, but then we had a massive setback at the end of the 2021 elections. when both Josephine Karungi at NTV, and Margaret Vuchiri at Daily Monitor, resigned at the same time. That was a big setback because I had been trying to build gender equality into the management team. And every time we would get to a point, they would resign. Sarah Nalule in marketing also resigned. It was just like fighting a battle, but I can understand because going through that election in 2021 was very rough⏤ although my first election was in 2016⏤ an eye-opener too.
What do you mean an eye-opener? What’s special about elections for a media house?
You see, I am a commercial man. I’m not a journalist, nor a freedom fighter. I’m not writing to overthrow regimes. When I worked at New Vision, I ran the commercial side⏤ marketing and sales. When I moved to MPL, not only was I running marketing and sales, but I was also responsible for the editorial.
During elections, independent media houses like ours come under so much scrutiny by the politicians, their supporters and the government. In the 2021 elections, there was pressure from all sides. After 2021, I said, I’ll have to leave before the next election. It was, a complicated political time, that’s why I am not surprised that Margaret and Josephine resigned.
The resignation of the two top female editorial executives set us back on our inclusivity agenda because I ended up remaining with only one female on my senior management team. That is the one area where I failed Nation Media Group because I was given a five-year plan for gender equality, on my management team. I failed miserably because it is still at 80/20, male to female. That is one area I have significantly failed.
But on everything else⏤ I think I’ve served almost nine years. The longest-serving MD, before me was the Founding Managing Director, Mr. Wafula Oguttu. Nobody else has lasted more than 3 years. I think that’s a feather in my cap because; a) we made more healthy profits for the Group on all of our products since I joined and b) we’ve embarked on our Business of the Future⏤ putting most of our prime content behind a paywall, and generally switching from an analogue business to a digital business⏤ although the analogue business is still needed to keep the business profitable.
Tell us more about this digital journey⏤ what exactly are you doing and how is it coming along? And why now?
The Business of the Future is our strategy for where we really want to be at the end of 2027. There is a big element of digital readiness, that feeds into every single thing we’re doing.
Other than putting all our prime content behind a paywall, we have digitized all our archives, photographs etc and we are in the process and geotagging all our photographs. It is not yet available to the public yet, but internally, you can search our library by location, year, name, event etc. We have done all that so that we are ready to give a much better online product and user experience.
Strategy-wise, it was difficult to make the switch to a paywall because Editorial thought we weren’t ready. Well, they thought weren’t ready in 2020; in 2018; we probably would never be ready, until we get into the water and in the deep end because once you are there, it’s much easier to assess the situation while you’re trying to keep your head above water and make decisions faster because otherwise, you will sink. We have to keep our heads above the water and think faster to achieve the outcomes that we need.
So we have weekly, monthly and annual subscriptions, annual subscriptions. About 40% of them are annual; 30% monthly and another 30% weekly. But the weekly subscriptions are many small ones because it is about UGX3500; so even if you have 1000s the money is tiny. We are doing at about 40 subscriptions a day so far. It’s not enough to achieve our North Star yet, so we’re still looking at other areas to bring in other areas like television and games. All of our columnists, you can read them before they go into the paper, the day before, but you have to pay for them. The audience that is paying and reading online is different from the hard copy. The guys who want the papers, want the papers and the guys reading online are a newer audience- guys that were reading online for free, that are now saying, well, I prefer to pay for that.
The hard copy has stayed. Although we took a big drop in COVID, we, including the e-paper, recovered to about 15,000. We are about 4,000 copies down from pre-Covid numbers.
Although we have acquired the software, we are yet to deploy it give us finer analytics on our user base, their location etc. But we’re in the business of the process of fully deploying it to allow us to determine and study a number of things e.g daily reports on what’s working and what is not; which kinds of stories are driving more subscriptions and which ones are not.
Our first priority was rolling out the paywall, starting with Nairobi, then Uganda in October and later Mwanainchi in Tanzania⏤ so now all the content across the region is behind a paywall. However, we don’t have yet a regional subscription package. You have to subscribe individually for each of the countries. So, the next step now is to develop a package; one pass, for all the regional NMG products. Then we shall start to work on the software that we have bought that runs it e.g the newsletter software; the analysis software etc that will help us build expertise and analytics on what works, and what doesn’t; what kind of stories, generate a subscription, and what doesn’t?
Lots and lots of background work is happening in terms of development, while we have analogue still paying the bills⏤ analogue TV, radio and the newspaper hardcopy⏤ and it’ll keep paying the bills for at least the next five years as we grow the digital business. If we get everything right, and with all the groundwork that has been done, the new MD can come in and take over and run with it easily.
For now, the analogue business kind of runs itself without so much effort because there are good people in place- in the papers, circulation as well as sales. We also have good editorial structures. Of course, every now and then, there’s a little bit of involvement in editorial by the management when there’s a sensitive issue, but other than that, the analogue business is running itself. So, the new MD will need to focus on this business of the future. We’ve got a four-year plan of what needs to be done to take it to the next level. Hopefully, in seven years, a minimum of 50% of our total revenues will be coming from digital resources, which then give us a significant platform and leap in terms of the business for the future.
In terms of skillsets, and mindsets, is everybody aligned to this, the business of the future?
We’ve worked very hard to get people aligned. We’ve done lots of internal communication, and lots of internal marketing to start with. We start all our meetings with a recap, of our North Star, what it means, where it is and what we’re doing. All of these things are built into our structure and then cascaded down so that, hopefully within the next three or four months we’re at the stage where, even our cleaning company, know what our North Star is and what role they can play in helping us achieve it. The majority of our internal staff are aware of what we are doing and how it impacts them directly and they understand the role they need to play in this, the business of the future.
Still, from the skillsets and talent view, the media industry has one of the biggest talent mobility rates with the biggest threat being the emerging communications industry, especially public relations. How are you keeping up with this insatiable demand from the communications industry which looks to the newsroom as a fertile poaching ground? How do you plan to maintain a steady skill pool needed for this fast-and-furious digital future?
You know, it’s difficult a difficult place. We get a lot of journalists coming into the newsroom straight from journalism school and very raw. They need a lot of work and mentorship to polish them. I have come to believe that journalists can be categorised into two kinds- there are those who will never go into PR, they will always be journalists – They’re the kind of freedom fighters. They have gone into journalism because they believe they can make a difference. And then, others have done Mass Comm because that was a degree that was awarded to them or given to them. Yes, they are good writers, but not hardened freedom fighter types and a PR option is always a better option for them.
Salary wise I don’t think we can compete with the communications industry for talent. Even the government pays better- whenever they have poached our journalists. They pay them three, four times, or more than what we can pay them. So we can’t compete. We have accepted that we can’t compete. It’s like being Sheffield United. As soon as you have a good player, the top four clubs are gonna buy them, so you’ve got to keep bringing in new players and hopefully, you can stay up in the Premier League. You are not gonna do much, it’s just gonna happen.
That is why we continue to spend a lot of time on training, skilling and mentoring our journalists. That is one of our big areas. That is why we have someone like Carol Beyanga who has just resigned, as our Head of Mentorship, Partnerships and Monetisation, but we immediately recruited her as a mentor and trainer. She focuses on our future journalists, in terms of training and mentoring, and overall, improving their skills.
Our Managing Editors are also empowered and they spend a lot of time empowering younger talent. Over the years, the editorial model was we would take in lots of raw stories and then spend a lot of time trying to make sense of it. But now the approach is if the writers send in junk, we just give it back. Everyone knows there is a minimum quality that we can accept. There is a lot more emphasis on quality which is forcing our journalists to be more circumspective about what they’re doing, and developing a better understanding of what they do and how that contributes to the big agenda.
We have also revisited our editorial reward structures. We have for example created different payment structures. A lot of our writers are pay-as-you-go, writers. Because we want longer enterprise stories, the old system of pay-as-you-go doesn’t work anymore. For example, if someone has to work on a particular story for weeks, they should be assured that they will be rewarded for such a good story. We have developed what we call editor-generated reports or editor-led storytelling. There’s an opportunity for editors to have a mutually rewarding conversation on the kind of stories that we want and how much we are willing to pay for that story. Because ideally that story should be able to generate direct revenue in the form of new subscribers as well as sell more newspaper copies and we want journalists to share in that value creation.
This is a great idea. For once, journalists can directly link their output to revenue which opens up room to answer the age-old question of journalists under-remuneration. Are the journalists warming up to this suggestion or are they still happy with what I can call press-conference journalism?
Unless we eliminate press conference journalism , we eliminate this scenario where writers and editors are going for the easy options and low-hanging stories, which we know is also sometimes motivated by some transport facilitation, we can’t go far. Editors need to take responsibility. They are the guys who can see immediate mutual opportunities that they can then brief their reporters to go after. Editors have got to bring their guard up and hold the journalists accountable. That is how we can collectively move the needle.
Some journalists just are never going to be able to step up to that level. And it’s not just journalists- it also includes the whole team, sales, production etc. For example, there are salespeople who will always generate between UGX5 million and 20 million a month. They’ll never generate more, because they can’t think bigger. But you need them in your mix because one, there is not that steady supply of the 5-star salespeople generating UGX100 million above, but as an alternative, if you have 10 people, each generating UGX20 million, then that’s UGX200 million. It is hard work, yes, you sometimes have to accept the reality.
Looking at the past decade, especially in your 9 years, have you seen a significant shift in the revenue composition of a typical media house like Monitor Publications? Has there for example been any significant change in the circulation/advertising mix over the years?
Yeah, that’s changed quite significantly. I’ll be honest, over the years, our advertising revenue has shrunk. Our circulation revenue has come down to about 60% of what it was. So, there’s been a drop there, but our radio revenue has grown significantly. Our interest income is significantly higher. Our courier revenue is the highest it’s ever been and we make about UGX700 million to UGX1 billion on events. Next year, for example, we will be having one or two events every month. We will be going into events as a viable source of income. So, the analogue product revenue has shrunk, but other revenue sources have grown and that’s how we have been able to maintain profitability.
There are two models of driving profitability⏤ one is a cost-cutting-led model and the other is a revenue growth model. There is a school of thought that says most of the profitability in the past five years has been driven by the former. What’s your take?
A bit of both, I would say. But there’s also been a lot of innovation on all fronts.
Yes, we’ve, cut costs before. We retrenched staff twice in the nine years. We have also moved a lot more people on what you call pay-as-you-go. For example, before, we had a big sales force, but now we employ what we call Super Sales Managers. So a Super Sales Manager gets a moderate retainer. But they also run a team, from which they get a direct cut of the revenue their team generates. There’s room to earn substantially more if they drive their team to greater heights. So there is a lot more of that scenario and I would say this has been a win-win for all of us.
To meet the needs of the new reader there’s been a lot of talk towards convergence- getting journalists who are multimedia-focused in terms of content generation. I think this idea was pioneered by NMG. How successful has this been? Has it perhaps also helped you manage some of the costs? What are some of the key lessons that the industry can learn from?
Now there are a couple of journalists that have embraced this⏤ a few good journalists that have embraced that culture and are reporting across the board. But there’s still a lot who operate within their comfort zone and they don’t see the bigger opportunity. One of the real successful stories- we have a programme on NTV called NTV Panorama. This is a television journalist who’s filming, writing and investigating – doing everything and releasing worthy products. That is one good example of journalists who have embraced convergence. We also have several salespeople who have embraced convergence and are making good money- because we have quite a good product portfolio⏤ the number one TV, the No.1 independent newspaper, the 2nd biggest English radio station in Kampala, a major Luganda radio station in Kampala, all backed up by very powerful digital presence- such as the number one English website and leading social media platforms. If you package that- you have a powerful and impactful media offering that you can ride on to do great things whichever way you look at it- whether for yourself as a journalist or salesperson and or for NMG as a media house.
As an end-user or rather employer of products of journalism schools, do you feel our journalism schools are doing enough to prepare their students for the kind of reality, skills and mindsets that are needed and relevant in today’s and the future marketplace/newsrooms? Are they being given wider perspectives on how this new media is working? Where is the gap you think because media convergence should be self-explanatory?
You are right, there is certainly a huge need for a shift in mindset and skilling in our journalism schools. I have never been to journalism school myself and I don’t know what they are teaching but what I know is that journalism is changing. We are for example building the infrastructure to curate our content into the 30-second to 1-minute videos for use on emerging platforms such as TikTok and Instagram as our dissemination platforms and then backing it up with longer read and longer videos for Twitter and other platforms.
Journalism schools need to adjust to the times. Yes, there are some traditional and basic tenets of journalism which won’t change such as integrity, impartiality, non-sensationalization etc that must be followed, however you report it, but the delivery of the final product is changing quite dramatically. The guys who want everything in a newspaper format, are dying off slowly, and in 20 or 30 years, will they be around or not?
The youth of today and the children and other upcoming audiences, rarely consume our products in the traditional ways we delivered them 5 years ago. Yes, they still want to consume news and entertainment but they want it delivered differently- most likely on the phone and online. We have got to follow them there and us as the creators need to be prepared and skilled to deliver that.
You are the second-longest serving NMG Managing Director in Uganda. One of the reasons why your predecessors didn’t last that long was because of a push and pull between the government and Monitor Publications. Daily Monitor, has especially had a love-hate relationship with the government and from time to time, the President loves to call it the evil newspaper. How does it when the President calls out your paper as evil? How have you managed this delicate relationship between NMG and the government in these 9 years?
Let me say we have a complicated relationship with the government, And it’s not all negative. We have very good relationships with the government. Government, first of all, is still our biggest advertiser, by far, in the newspaper. Not radio and TV. And yes the president has called us out, but it is important to note that 2 or 3 times, it has been very positive. He says, that I can’t believe the bad paper has done something good.
He has over the years, called me a few times. The first time he called me, I was in Germany, and he was so angry. He was screaming into the phone. But we solved the problem. And then I got a message from his people the next day and they said he was thankful for solving the problem. Then the other times, he’s called me in a more jovial mood and said, you go downstairs, and he even knows where the journalists sit; he told me you go downstairs and you say to those bad editors, that the President says well done. This is a brilliant story.
That aside, if you talk to our journalists, they have very good relationships with people in government including the State House.
That said, let’s face it, we can’t keep everyone happy all the time. We have to stick to our mantra which is “Doing the right thing, for the right reasons and in the interests of what we believe is good for the country’. Truth be said sometimes the journalists take things to the extreme while trying to make a point about something. But then that’s why we have a solid gatekeeper in Daniel Kalinaki our General Manager, Editorial. That’s his role. He is there to manage that process, manage the tone and temper the anger that sometimes builds up within the journalists who see things going wrong.
I am sure other media houses, including government-owned ones also upset the statehouse but that’s an occupational hazard if I may say. Our relationship with the government has had highs and lows. The President sued us, he had never sued us before. We resolved that amicably. And he said he had forgiven us. He said, “I forgive you. I don’t hold grudges”.
I think he sees the value that our platforms add. Maybe it’s not always the editorial that he wants, but he sees the value. A lot of the ministry people and other government players see the value. For example, when we did our culture week three weeks back, we invited the Minister of ICT and National Guidance, he gladly came and we had a mutually fruitful conversation. He spoke highly of what we do but reminded us that there is no need to antagonise and instead let’s build the country together.
Our relationship with the government has been an eye-opener for me. Certainly, we don’t want to take on the state. We are not about regime change. It’s just that where we believe in terms of our hearts and ideals that something is not in the interest of the country, we will report it, even if that upsets some people.
Lastly, if the Tony Glencross of today, met the Tony Glencross of 2014 when you were just starting this job and now, knowing what you know, and the fears you had then, what would you advise them?
Well, the Tony Glencross of 2014 weighed like 108 kilos. He was probably healthier, but the Tony Glencross of now weighs 118 kilos. I would tell him to watch out for stress because when stress gets to me, I put on a lot of weight.
On the business side, I would tell them to drive digital first. We would have been so far down the line if we had driven the digital-first agenda, then, and not prioritized just making money. Back then we focused a lot more on turning the existing business around and making money, forgetting that we needed to develop a business for the future. So I would say to myself, spend 20% of your time from day one, focusing on this future business so that by nine years down the line, we are 200% of where we are now. That is one of the key things I would emphasize.
The other thing would be to look after your health and watch your lifestyle.
But overall, it has been a rewarding journey. It has also been a learning journey. I’ve met many good people. I however must admit, that I didn’t like the fact that I was instantly recognisable wherever I went. The only safe environment was perhaps the golf course where I could go and have a beer or two. There are no reporters and no cameras. I am looking forward to going back to obscurity, and comfortably meeting my mates in the pub for a beer.