Ratio Magazine :: The Inside Track to East Africa’s Economies - News Analysis: East African Magazines Fold

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News Analysis: East African Magazines Fold

Monday, 22 March 2010

It appears that the culling of EAM titles Adam, a men’s magazine, and Twende, a travel magazine, had not been enough to turn the company around. By Andrea Bohnstedt.

After brief rumours that Twende would be published quarterly, and several job ads for new recruitments, it transpired today that East African Magazines (EAM) have pulled the plug entirely: no return of either Twende or Adam, and the company’s other lifestyle magazines Drum, True Love and Move will now also be discontinued, unless a new investors picks up the rights to these titles.

According to company sources, advertising revenues had just been too low. Certainly Kenya was a tough market in the past two years, with the combination of the post-election crisis, drought and the impact of the global financial crisis, all of which combined led to GDP growth rates of 1.7% in 2008 and between 2% and 3% in 2009 – not the easiest environment for lifestyle publishing. In addition, circulation of each title remained relatively low.

Joe Otin from market research andmedia monitoring firm Synovate, however, commented that he was ‘a little surprised’ by these news: According to Synovate’s research, print advertising spend on magazines had actually risen to 16% of the overall market in the past two years, up from 8% before.

The EAM is seen as another example of a South African company not being able to crack the Kenyan market. Media 24’s approach ultimately stifled Adam Magazine’s creative beginnings in the middle of a political crisis (Ratio Blog: Why Adam Magazine Folded ).
Industry insiders also say that the South African parent company gave its Kenyan staff little leeway in taking decisions on their titles and generally didn’t trust Kenyan staff to run operations independently, but made the Kenya entity carry the costs for considerably expensive South African consultants that they flew in regularly. One area where the South Africans appear to have miscalculated entirely was the magazines’ online presence: Too little, too late.

Perspectives
EAM were not the first lifestyle publishers to go out of business: For struggling Oakland Media, publishers of Eve and Eve Girl, political involvement and a short-lived weekly political magazine were their downfall. Nairobi-based Mondeas, a multi-media firm, have a more optimistic view of the market, having just published the second edition of their new title Urban Perspectives, a Nairobi-focused urban lifestyle magazine. Sylvia Owori’s African Woman, published out of Uganda and now with a Kenyan edition, is reportedly still not profitable, partly because of the high production costs.

If Kenya, the region’s biggest and most developed economy, cannot sustain a market for magazines, which country can? With low circulations, a limited reading culture, and generally high costs of doing business, the magazine market remains fragmented and full of small, badly produced titles. However, there is clearly much demand for lifestyle content – and given the rapid growth in internet access and mobile subscribers, a magazine with a solid online strategy should be able to capitalise on this and also reach the diaspora. With EAM going out of the market, is this the push needed for a properly thought-out digital publication?

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