Against speculations that the Nigerian print media industry is saturated, Ikechukwu Amaechi, the managing director of Acclaim Communications Limited, publisher of TheNiche, Nigerian newest newspaper, says there is still room in the market to accommodate more entrants.
Speaking with BusinessDay over the weekend, Amaechi who was the editor of Daily Independent before establishing TheNiche, an exclusive Sunday newspaper, wonders how the print media industry with a total daily circulation figure of below 400,000 would be saturated in a country with a population of about 167 million people.
According to him, the Nigerian media industry will appear saturated because Nigerians are either not reading or the news contents in various publications are not resonating with the audience. What informed TheNiche is the determination of the founders who are thorough bred journalists with several years of experience to provide the contents that will match the aspiration of its target audience who are middle and elite class of the society, he says.
“The idea of this newspaper is that we will dwell heavily on investigations and exclusive stories. Then another problem we have also discovered in the media industry in Nigeria is that in most cases we don’t follow up stories.
“We want to come out with exclusive interviews, real interviews. Going back to ask people questions because you must ask questions in journalism. It is only when you ask those questions that you get answers to whatever you are looking, either the problems bedevilling the society or that is affecting individuals,” he says.
On his publication on Sunday only, he says most Sunday newspapers in Nigeria, Africa’s strongest economy and most populous nation, are mere extensions of their daily titles. There is little distinction. TheNiche seeks to fill this void. “TheNiche will be a refreshing Sunday newspaper that readers will be happy to hold on to. It will provide value for money,” Amaechi pledges, saying that “the middle-class in Nigeria is starved of well written newspapers. TheNiche plans to raise the stakes to teach good writing in addition to reporting the story.”
Asked whether there is any moneybag politician or industrialist behind the publication, he says “this is a publication by journalists who would welcome assistance to grow the publication.”
