Much as the global advertising trends, the Zimbabwean legacy media is faced with declining revenue from selling space and airtime for marketing purposes.
Without going into empirical evidence to substantiate this decline, it is clear even for the visually impaired to see the flight of advertisers.
The pagination of national mainstream media newspapers has significantly been reduced and so is the number of other forms of product placements such as advertorials and supplements.
The situation is not any better for traditional electronic media, radio and television, never mind that the former remains the most accessible form of media.
Of course, the statistics could be a little different for Zimbabwe's 'new kids' on the block — the recently licensed television and community radio stations whose baseline of advertisers at inception would be zero.
However, the owners and boards of these will be the first to admit that the promise at inception and the obtaining environment are parallel.
Reports by media research hub Media Monitors and by the association of community radio stations, Zimbabwe Association of Community Radios (Zacras) highlight the sustainability challenges that the television broadcast sector and community radios are facing.
And these challenges, are at various levels including but not limited to the policy framework, market fluctuations, skills flight and political and commercial pressures. At a policy level, it is good that the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) has been earmarked for reforms to encourage investment and to review content and advertising ratios, introducing a more deliberate licensing framework.
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The reforms further seek to modernise the law in response to the obtaining environment. The ongoing reforms are, however, meaningless if not correspondent by reconfiguring the product that is on sale to advertisers.
The media's currency is trust and quality entertaining content that draws audiences - the very market that advertisers and marketers would like to reach.
It's a numbers game. This is why the results of the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (Zamps) coordinated by the Zimbabwe's Advertising Research Foundation (ZARF) draw much controversy among media stakeholders on account of highlighting who is reaching out to more readers and listeners.
Numbers are a raw nerve for media managers and even though the mainstream media is globally facing decline in audiences, this is a conversation that media stakeholders don't want to confront.
The more radical, believe that traditional media like newspapers are actually dead and just merely waiting for the burial date.
And their claims are not without merit. The newspaper sector has been on a sharp decline since the turn of the millennium. The situation has been worsened by the emergence and growth of the internet and the subsequent social media platforms.
There is this euphoria that comes in discussing the impact of social media as the new game in town to replace the dying traditional - particularly print media.
But does this assertion ring true for Zimbabwe? Well, maybe not. For starters, depending on your source of statistics on internet penetration, it is fair to assert that at least 40% of the country's population has no access to the internet.
And this statistic is reflective of the country's population trends in which 60% of the population is based in the rural and peri-urban areas.
It is no wonder then that radio remains the most accessed medium, moreso that it can be reached on mobile phone devices. The mobile penetration rate is almost at saturation level and it is fair to make an assumption that every household in the country has some form of direct access to a mobile phone and to an extent radio services.
The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) issued licenses to areas with limited connectivity to local radio, thus further growing the impact and reach of radio. Yet, the advertising trends in Zimbabwe are not reflective of this growth in audience and reach.
Instead, there is a growing social media influencer culture that advertisers are embracing.
For better and for worse.
It is good that there is diversification and that social media influencers and content creators are complimenting the established media.
And they too have the numbers. Some influencers and bloggers for example command more followers on social media platforms than traditional media outlets. This is also the case with online media upstarts, who like most influencers and bloggers rarely have accountability standards and mechanisms for quality control of news and information.
It's a free and fast paced market, exciting enough to attract the numbers relevant to advertisers but with risks of duplicate numbers due to multiple social media accounts and missing the target local audience.
Zimbabwe's social media influencers cut across the diaspora community and the broad global village, which has pros and cons for advertisers. This brings me to another fundamental question of understanding where Zimbabweans consume their news and information, particularly based on the assertion that there's a declining market for traditional media and that the online media audiences are limited by factors such as access and cost.
While traditional forms of communication are still widely used and a significant market having moved to the free to air satellite services dominated with regional television channels, there seems to be an untapped market that advertisers and the media can collaborate and reach out to.
There is still scope for advertisers and the legacy media to find each other and implement partnership journalism that is taking off in other countries as means to preserve the information ecosystem while tapping into new markets.
As an example, it could be better for insurance companies to invest in journalistic stories that unpack the innuendos of the sector than merely placing an advert.
There is also an opportunity that is being presented with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) that both advertisers and the media can collaborate on in finding space in the digital economy and preserving information integrity online.
Enhancing collaboration between advertisers and the media is a sure step towards saving and entrenching sustainability of traditional media, where the majority of Zimbabweans are still accessing news and information.
*Nigel Nyamutumbu is a media development practitioner serving as the coordinator of a network of journalistic professional associations and media support organizations the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ). He made this presentation at an Advertising and Media Symposium coordinated by ZARF and partners in Harare. He can be contacted on njnya2@gmail.com or +263 772 501 557
