The sustainability of private newspapers in the country has been in question for over two years now. Even though measures have been taken by the media houses to stay afloat in the market, no concrete solutions have been worked out to address the issue.
The second oldest private newspaper in the country, Bhutan Observer, had to retrench employees. “We had to take some drastic steps because to address the shortage or the shrink in the revenue of the newspaper we had to start publications,” said the news editor of Bhutan Observer, Jigme Wangchuk.
He said with a few measures in place, the financial status of the company has improved slightly.
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The misunderstanding is that the government must support all the newspapers and give everyone the advertising to sustain . Government does not have that kind of finds. Government has different strategies to help media like infrastructure, fiber optics, equipment, no taxes on the equipment.”
Dasho Kinley Dorji
Secretary,
MoIC
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Besides the publications of its own books, like best of Bhutan Observer editorials, they also have the contract of compiling a magazine for Drukair Corporation. The media house is also redesigning its website to earn from online advertisements.
Bhutan Today began its issue on a daily basis but now it has become bi-weekly. The newspaper had to bring down the number of staff to 19 from 50. The Marketing Manager of Bhutan Today, Bharat Yongyang, said many staff were not paid because the company had no revenue. He also said most of the advertisements from the government go to Kuensel.
The Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC , Dasho Kinley Dorji, said it is the question of how many different media companies print, broadcast or online, that a society can sustain. “When private media say that there are not enough ads, what does that mean? Not enough ads for how many newspapers? 100? 50? 20? 10? 3?” He said Bhutanese population, readership, audience and market are small and limited. “Bhutanese society can sustain only a certain number of media.”
The Secretary added that there is no enough advertisement budget to give advertisements to all the newspapers. “The government has assisted private media in terms of human resource development and purchase tax free printing machine and other equipment.”
Meanwhile, the Division of Infocomm and Media development says the advertisement guideline has all the criteria that have to be followed while government offices advertise with the media.
The Chief of InfoComm and Media Development Division, Monira Tshewang, said they have in place the Information and Media officers who will actually help with this placement of advertisements. “…we are conducting training for them to be able to learn about the whole thing of advertisement.”
