By Ian Ortega
The next stage and I repeat the next stage in the Media Industry of Uganda is going to call for real specialization. This is what I mean. What if we had a Ugandan TV channel that dedicated itself to business 24-7? What if you would tune in to such a channel, watch stories of businessmen, watch documentaries of various companies and how they were started? Watch the current trends on the stock market and how the shilling is trading against the dollar?
What if you had business news on this channel? What if you had debates between various industry leaders on various topics? Now imagine this kind of specialization and you get why it’s time for the Media to change its model.
I say this because when we started BigEyeUg, we wanted to be everything. We wanted to have an Online Shop, we wanted a Ugandan Social Network, then a Dating network. We realized, we couldn’t be a master of all trades. By the end of the first three months, we’d phased out the online shop, the free sms, the dating network and many things. And once we did, we were able to focus on our strengths and that made all the difference.
I now want to imagine something else. What if we can have a 24-7 Ugandan News Channel? Where you tune in at any time and you have live news updates from all parts of the country? Imagine a Ugandan BBC of a kind.
Now begin widening that specialization to something else. Imagine a serious Ugandan Food TV. Or perhaps a Ugandan travel TV? The possibilities are endless.
The gold is in finding a niche and guarding it jealously. Play by your strengths. Find a gap and close it.
The Good News is; “Digital TV is coming our way.”
When it comes to Ugandan Newspapers. This is one industry in Uganda that has kept on doing the same thing for the last 20 years and expecting different results. They have run the same model. No Wonder, no Newspaper in Uganda sells more than 40K copies in a population of over 30 million. Doesn’t that surprise you? That is 0.13% of Ugandans reading newspapers. Again, what if one Newspaper chose to give out its copies for free? That’s a radical idea. A newspaper in Kenya was struggling with sales. It changed the model. Today every advertiser wants to work with them because they are certain everyone will get a copy of their newspaper. It now distributes 40,000 copies from 6000.
Maybe there is something I don’t know. Maybe I am ignorant. But who says philosophy is not allowed?