MR. F. N.

BARDE

Abstract:

Considers the problems associated with the production and distribution

of newspapers in Nigeria, newspapers constitute an important source of
information in literate societies. Their importance lies in the current
information they carry. This information keeps the readers informed of
current events as well as serving to educate and entertain. The
newspapers published in Nigeria are general interest titles intended for a
mass audience, including both the general public and academics.

Nigeria publishes a number of Newspapers. Some are produce daily,

weekly, monthlies and bi–monthlies. Another dozen similar publications
exist to serve special interest groups. A typical Nigerian newspaper is
comprised of news, articles, stories, and features. This gives magazines
an advantage over books which are designed to be read from cover to
cover; a newspaper can be read in its entirety or bit by bit. They also
carry information in various subjects. Coverage includes humanistic
subjects such as philosophy, psychology, music, language, commerce,
business, sociology, and education. Nigerian newspapers are particularly
rich in terms of the information they carry in the social sciences, and
humanistic subjects.

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 CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Nigeria’s newspaper industry is a vibrate one and this is because

the press institution in the country has come a long way. Since the
introduction of the first indigenous newspaper in 1859, the
Nigerian reading public has been inundated with different
newspapers, many of which are private owned. According to
Sommerlad (1996) state that “Nigeria has not only made
progress in this important aspect of national growth and
development; it has been made to adopt the press as a
political tool, for economic development, stimulation of
change and for social function.” The privately owned
newspaper outfits are usually more direct in their reports, they are
usually not given to unbridled propaganda and acting as
government mouthpiece like the government-owned outfits. They
usually tell the story as it is without fear or favour. They appear in
print and online. Most Nigerians rely on these papers to report and
provide an honest analysis of the political and economic events in
the country.

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 CHAPTER TWO

2.0 NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS AND HOW THEY ARE BEEN

PRODUCED

Another important role of the newspapers in Nigeria is that of

serving as a catalyst to literacy development. Basically, we can
categorize Nigerian newspapers into two broad groups. The first
group comprises of daily newspapers. Examples are: The
Guardian, The Punch, The Nigerian Tribune, The Comet,
This Day, The Daily Sketch, The Observer, The New
Nigerian, etc. still within this group, we have some titles
specifically devoted to weekends, evenings or early mornings.
Such title as The Sunday Punch, The Sunday Guardian, AM
and PM News, etc can be recognized. The second broad group
comprises magazines, which are published weekly, bi-weekly or
monthly. We can equally identify two types of newspapers in
Nigeria. There are those that are devoted to serious or
investigative journalism like Tell, the News, Newswatch, etc. The
other types are those that are called soft-sell magazines, which are
essentially devoted to entertainment, celebrities, gossips like
Ovation, National Encomiums, Hints, Hearts, etc. The main
difference these two broad groups is that while daily newspapers
report news on a daily or day-to-day basis, the weekly or monthly
newspapers report news on weekly or monthly basis, according to
which is applicable. The first group claims that they tell the news
as it breaks, while the second group claims that they put flesh and
meat through their in-depth analysis and investigative activities.

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 Private entrepreneur can establish newspaper publishing being
part of the mass media in Nigeria where the newspaper is owned
solely by private individual (s) or companies without any financial
help coming from any government.

2.1 PROBLEMS FACING PRODUCTION OF NIGERIAN

NEWSPAPERS

In spite of these, the Newspapers productions have their own

problems in Nigeria. The problems facing the industry presently
include but not limited to:

1. Poor remuneration which tends to expose the practitioners to

unethical practices.

2. Operating in a depressed economy which has made the

operators to often increase the cover prices just to meet high
production cost.

3. Poor readership which adversely affect the circulation

revenue. Most Nigerians hardly buy either because they will
not find time to read or because they are not literate enough
to read print media contents. Even those who can read often
prefer tipping vendors to allow them read for a while and
return than to buy and read at their convenient. The
phenomenon of thronging around newsstands to read and

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 give back to the vendors is now derisively called “Free
Readers Association”.

2.1 PROBLEMS INVOLVE IN DISTRIBUTING NIGERIAN

NEWSPAPERS

Distributing newspapers and magazines in Nigeria is not an easy

task, because there is no good infrastructure for the distribution of
newspapers and magazines in the 36 states of the most populous
country in Africa. This awesome population of millions of people
can afford to read newspapers and magazines if you know how to
reach them daily, weekly or monthly. The fact that millions of
Nigerians would rather spend millions of dollars on GSM phone
calls than on newspapers, magazines and books show that
Nigerians love talking than reading. Of course, we have been
talking for centuries before we started learning how to read and
write. Until you have handed your publications to the vendors you
will not rest, because without these vendors your newspaper or
magazine will not be well distributed all over Nigeria.

If you are in Lagos city or other urban towns and cities in Nigeria,
you will notice small crowds of people milling around news-stands
of vendors and gazing at the covers of the displayed newspapers
and magazines. Many of them read the headlines and first
paragraphs on the front pages and others pay less then the cover
price to read more pages of the newspapers before leaving the
spot. The vendors have nothing much to lose if the copies of these
newspapers passed round among so many “on the spot” readers

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are returned unsold, because they make extra money from these
passersby on each copy of the various newspapers and also collect
their daily commissions from the distributors or publishers. In fact,
some publishers use shortcuts to bypass the major registered
distributors and engage the vendors to sell their newspapers and
magazines directly to the readers on the street. The publisher of
the Castle real estate and property newspaper employs his own
vendors. For instant, The Guardian and The Punch also have their
own vendors.

The decision to do the newspaper circulation report became

imperative due to the absence of an independent Report of
newspaper figures in Nigeria. Over the years, actual newspaper
sales have been shrouded in secrecy. This vacuum has made it
difficult for marketers and advertisers to plan, execute and truly
ascertain the level of impact of their marketing and advertising
campaigns. According to the Association of Advertising Agencies of
Nigeria president, Funmi Onabolu, “We are all accountable and
we need the right figures to work with. More
collaborations of this sort are needed in the industry for us
to come up with research data verifiable fact and figures
to run our businesses.” This hostile attitude of government and
its security agents towards newspapers publishers is not conducive
to the free flow of information in Nigeria

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 CHAPTER THREE

3.0 PROSPECTS TO THE PROBLEMS OF NIGERIAN

NEWSPAPERS

The following are solutions to the problems facing the

Nigerian Newspapers production and distribution:

1. We can attract some millions of the over 65 million users of GSM

phones to buy newspapers and magazines if we can convince
them to appreciate the fact that buying and reading more
newspapers and magazines will be of great benefit to sustainable
development of the Nigerian press and very important to nation
building. I believe it is possible when we have a good managerial
efficiency.

2. Provision of sufficient revenue for the proper production and

distribution of this newspapers. But still, the figure is not likely to
go anywhere near the 200 000 copies needed to sustain a
newspaper, without adverts revenue.

3. By changing the cost structure of almost every newspaper in

Nigeria and it does not make sense from the standpoint of
managerial economics. The cost is too high. In trying to recover
the cost, the cover charges are too high also, if newspapers were
tightly managed, the cover price will not be more that N50 and
that will result in bigger sales. Example, many newspapers in this
country has printing presses that are designed to print a million or
more per day. But no newspaper in Nigeria today prints half a
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 million. So they have installed capacity that is far in excess of their
operations. That is inefficient,

4. By addressing the situation in such a way that it will provide

adequate information and service required or necessary to meet
the demands of today.

CONCLUSION

Many reasons have been given for the gradual drop in the figures of
copies of newspapers and magazines sold in Nigeria. But the truth is the
figures of the readers have not dropped over the years. In fact, the
readers have been increasing, but the majority of them do not buy the
copies of newspapers and magazines they read daily. They have been
sharing the copies bought by their colleagues in the workplace or
neighbours and thousands more actually pay less to the vendors to read
the newspapers on the spot and then drop them and many of these
copies have been returned as unsold to the publishers.

REFERENCES
http://www.nairaland.com/515229/nigerian-newspaper-reader-bases

http://www.worlib.org/vol07no2/olorunsola_v07n2.shtml#int