Media, Publishing and Print

Twelve new radio stations have joined the electronic media landscape within the last year. Aakash Vani is the latest station in the Ansa McAL-owned Trinidad Broadcasting Company (TBC) group, which airs religious programming aimed at East Indian listeners 35 years and up. Prior to Aakash Vani’s March 2007 launch, TBC had recognised listeners’ demand for religious broadcast, TBC General Manager Brandon Khan said.

“The response has been overwhelming,” he said. “In a 34-station market, the station is achieving its financial targets, which are by no means easy targets. We’re already making a profit.”

According to the Ansa McAL 2006 annual report, the TBC established two full digital radio frequencies – 105.1 FM and 95.1 FM in 2006. Another two will be digitised in 2007/2008. Radio Jagriti, owned by the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS), will also join the religious radio line-up. Its 2007 launch came after the SDMS won a Privy Council legal battle with Government for a radio licence. The SDMS also has plans for Hindu TV. It has applied under Hindu Television and Broadcasting Services to cable operator Columbus Communications Ltd for a television station.

Foreign investment in the local telecommunications sector will also come in the form of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which has applied to the Telecommunications Authority of T&T (TATT) for a licence to operate an FM frequency.

Defunct state-owned Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) has re-emerged as Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG), which is broadcast on cable and non-cable TV. According to CEO Dominic Beaubrun, there are 12 television stations with cable and national licences. “Some are religious, community, niche, and some are news [stations], like CNC3,” he said.

“We’ve made a substantive investment in equipment and construction. We’ve taken a 1960s building and redesigned it into a digital powerhouse,” Beaubrun said.

The people of Charlotteville in Tobago are now receiving CNMG. “It is about content acquisition and distribution,” Beaubrun said. Investments in television stations will create niche differentiation and force standards to grow,” he said. “With the outlay of new products coming into the market, it will push the bar even higher. It will force competition to take note. They will have no choice but to stimulate the market and participate as quickly as possible,” Beaubrun said.

Veteran businessman and music producer Mohan Jaikaran launched WINTV on May 1, 2007. It is licensed for national broadcast and offers a mixed fare of news, current affairs, local programming and Bollywood movies.

Beaubrun estimated T&T’s advertising spend at $.5 billion. The question that remains is whether there is sufficient advertising to buoy profitability for all 34 radio stations and 12 television stations. According to the T&T Publishing and Broadcasting Association (TTPBA), the 2005 advertising spend amounted to $441,054 million. Radio’s advertising market grew proportionately by 24 per cent over 2005. This figure grew in 2006 to $578,785 million. This translated to a 42 per cent growth in advertising revenue.

Mobile competitor Digicel drove much of advertising revenue in 2006. The intense marketing campaign between Digicel and TSTT’s bmobile resulted in handsome bottom lines for all media houses, especially the three daily newspapers.

One newspaper executive said, “Print benefited from that war very substantially. There was a 30 per cent growth in revenue.” In 2006, one daily made $15 million in revenue from full-page ads placed by Digicel and bmobile.

Thanks to wider profit margins, media houses are investing in new technology. The 90-year-old Guardian newspaper acquired a $60 million German press scheduled for installation at a new building in Chaguanas by year’s end.

Though book and magazine publications as a means of disseminating information still play second fiddle to electronic media, they have been flourishing. Among the new magazines on the market are Pro League (football), and The Engineer, a publication of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago (APETT). That older publications such as Basia and Caribbean Belle are still around is encouraging in a market that is uneven at best.

The emergence of new magazines means that advertising revenue is more evenly distributed. Contact, published for the T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce by Eureka Communications (publisher of The Engineer), increased from 44 pages in March 2005 to 92 in March 2007. The June 2007 issue features 104 pages.

Hugh Ferreira, Managing Director of Eureka Communications, said that while people have ideas for magazines on youth and horticulture, “the advertising pool is static.” “Nobody knows if there’s an advertising market to support it. It is the same market we go to for Contact and The Engineer,” Ferreira said.

On the publishing side, Tim Nafziger, chairman and CEO of Medianet Ltd, has published 10,000 hard-cover copies of Legacy of the Soca Warriors – 1965-2006, and a maximum of 2006 limited edition copies of the “heritage” leather-bound version will sell for US$200 each. Nafziger, who printed Zero to Hero, Jack Warner’s biography authored by Valentino Singh, also printed former Test cricketer Andy Ganteaume’s biography, and Trinidad Carnival, a collection of photographs by Jeffrey Chock. Three more projects are in the works. “I think we ought to do more in recording history. We need to preserve our history,” Nafziger said. “Legacy, I think, easily has a ten-year life in print.”

Printing is a lucrative business in Trinidad. Ads for printers and printing services fill all of eight yellow pages of the 2007 Telephone Directory. The economic boom is encouraging people to spend more on print advertising, and this means flyers, posters, brochures, billboard signage and other promotional material. Printing of calendars, too, is in demand and many printeries are swamped with orders for these in the latter part of the year.

The Label House Group has a large market share for the production of labels, signs and billboards, packaging equipment and supplies. The Caroni-based company is proud of its ability to “strengthen brand awareness” and also provide visual promotional concepts to regional manufacturers and packagers of consumer products.  

Major printeries such as Caribbean Paper & Printed Products (1993) Ltd and Zenith Printing Services have staff working several shifts to maintain a 24-hour production schedule. These printeries with their computer-to-plate (CTP) technology, state-of-the-art presses, collator-stitchers, binders and UV-coating machines are also responsible for printing a fair share of material for smaller Caribbean islands, including Barbados, Dominica, St Vincent, Turks & Caicos. Print orders are also done for Guyana, and in some cases Canada, the US and the Far East. In this age of globalisation and fast-freighting, cartons of printed matter can swiftly get to their destinations and this is proving profitable for the quality printeries in Trinidad and Tobago.

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