KEY COMMUNICATION AND DEVELOPMENT WEBSITES AND PROJECTS

Human Development Report-Liberia

Review of Media Support in the Post-Conflict Transitional Period and Recommendations for Future Actions

Pictures Courtesy: Flickr and Constandad Estrelas, Tweefur, The Advocacy Project, Oso, Bonnie Allen and Lady Bug Blue

Liberia Newsprint

MOBILE
COMMUNICATIONS

INTERNET

RADIO

TELEVISION

NEWSPRINT

MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

Click Icon for Communication Overview

Newsprint Readership in Liberia

The status of Liberia’s newsprint industry reflects that of the post-conflict country itself. For a number of reasons, print circulation remains limited to areas within and surrounding the capital Monrovia. Distribution is hampered by a transportation infrastructure that suffered destruction during more than a decade of civil war, while many Liberians simply can't afford print media or are illiterate.

While there are some 38 registered newspapers, only 18 are regularly published. Eight of those are dailies and most reportedly sell less than 3,000 copies a day in a country of 3 million. [1]

Chart 1

Demographic Patterns

Beyond urban-rural differences (Chart 1), the availability of newspapers varies from county to county. The respondents in seven of Liberia’s 15 counties or districts reported weekly readership rates of less than 10 percent. Counties with higher readership tended to neighbor Montserrado county, home to the capital Monrovia.

Within the BBC 2008 national survey, newspaper readership was not only primarily a habit of urbanites but also the more affluent. Only 11 percent of those with a low-income reported reading a newspaper in the past week, while those with a middle-income were nearly three times more likely at 31 percent. High-income individuals were more four times more likely than low-income users at 46 percent to have read a newspaper in the past week. A typical 12-page tabloid costs roughly $20.00 Liberian Dollars, the equivalent of U.S.$0.25. [2]

Communal consumption is one way in which some Liberians are able to overcome their lack of disposable income. Just as with television, Liberians are known to share access to newspapers. In a recent study by the Liberia Media Center, the most common way of accessing a paper was through friends, followed by public spaces such as libraries and schools, and then newstands or kiosks. [3]

Education and literacy are other obvious factors to readership. With illiteracy among the adult population at nearly 50 percent, it comes as no surprise that over 85 percent of weekly newspaper readers in the survey said they have had at least some secondary education. Only about 20 percent of individuals with a primary school education reported reading a newspaper in the past week. For more information on the media habits of specific demographic groups see our Socio-Economic or Regional tabs.

State of the Industry

Many of the troubles that the newspaper industry faces are the same ones that all media actors and the country as a whole face, including problems with poor infrastructure, a population with little to no disposable income and few options for sustainable sources of revenue.

The lack of purchasing power within the general populace has limited the revenue newspapers can derive through sales. This has forced many papers to rely much more upon advertising and in such a small market there are a limited number of viable advertising revenue streams. Key advertisers include the UN Mission to Liberia (UNMIL), Liberia’s four mobile phone providers and the government. In some cases, newspapers' lack of diverse revenue streams has allowed advertisers to dictate pricing further undercut the industry's health. [4]

Print media has also been the subject of poor business management. As opposed to a few media houses controlling a larger number of newspapers, Liberia’s newspapers are primarily owned by journalists who are the sole proprietors. Often these owners lack a thorough business plan and the training to develop one. According to a representative of the Press Union of Liberia, ‘ most [owners] lack basic accounting and management principles, which accounts for the sporadic appearance of, especially, newspapers on the newsstand…..Some newspapers go to press only after securing advertising funds’. [5]

Printing has been another challenge. The cost of printing is by far newspapers’ highest operational cost. Sabannoh Printing Press has a near monopoly over newspaper printing, resulting in higher costs and constraints on printing schedules. Sabannoh has had difficulty meeting the printing demands of the industry, which has limited the number of pages per newspaper and regularity with which they are published.

In 2005, USAID donated a Heidelberg offset 46 by 64 cm printer to the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), along with a generator and lithographic equipment. Reportedly, the PUL has had difficulty finding the proper facilities to house and maintain the printing press. Two separate newspapers--the New Democrat, which publishes four times a week, and the Daily Observer--have their own printing presses. The New Democrat received its press with assistance from Dutch NGO Free Voice.

Distribution in the industry is not only limited economically but also structurally. Much of the country’s communication and transportation infrastructure is in need of massive repair. Roads in disrepair and a lack of properly functioning delivery vehicles hinder the distribution of newspapers to rural areas on a timely basis, further discouraging larger newspapers to expand their markets.

The destruction of Liberia’s electrical grid during the civil war has made production difficult for almost all newspapers. Most newspapers and businesses rely entirely on generators for power. Many cannot afford to purchase a generator of their own, so they are forced to borrow or rent them at a high cost. There has been progress in recent years in restoring the grid in Monrovia, but most newspapers still have to deal with this power problem.

Despite all these constraints, some newspapers have been able to grow. The Inquirer and the News are generally seen as market leaders. Each is published five times a week and have seen their circulations increase steadily over the years. The Inquirer, which was selling less than 500 copies daily at the end of 2003, reached between 1,000 and 2,500 copies of 8 pages daily by 2008. The Inquirer is now available in four of the 15 counties.

The News, the oldest newspaper in the country, sells an average of 1,000 copies of 8 pages per day. The average Liberian newspaper prints in an 8 page format and comes out weekly or two-to-three times a week. Circulation numbers vary from a few hundred to 1,000. [6]

AudiencScapes

Liberia Newsprint

Newsprint Readership in Liberia

Demographic Patterns

State of the Industry

RELATED LINKS