A media industry expert, Lekan Otufodunrin has challenged operators across Nigeria’s media ecosystem of the need to step up compliance to global digital best practices, so as to better improve upon their service delivery to consumers.
Otufodunrin, Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, Media Career Development Network is also of the view that the Nigerian media had performed creditably well in its traditional role of holding the government accountable through providing useful information to the masses but noted that operators in that sector needed to step up in compliance to digital global best practices to deliver quality services to consumers.
Digital compliance is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, bringing in fundamental changes to the way a business operates. Organizations across industries enjoy the benefits of digital transformation which enable businesses to modernize legacy processes, accelerate efficient workflows, strengthen security while also increasing profitability.
Speaking during an exclusive interview recently in Lagos, the media expert observed that the Nigerian media had gone a long way in migrating from analogue to digital but noted that there was still more room for improvement while urging the operators to endeavor to catch up with digital global best practice.
According to him “In terms of getting mass appeal, technology is a real global player that reaches the audience where they are. All we need is to provide the content that can meet the expectation of different publics”
Before, you have to recognise media organisation (traditional media), but now you are talking about new media. Sometimes it’s hard for some organisation to transit. There are lots of digital distributions, we can’t do those things we used to do again; the competition is high and lack of capacity is also a problem,” he explained.
“Because the audience is multidimensional, especially on social media, you have to be a truly multimedia platform and no longer just a newspaper or a radio or television. You are now a media company and you have the option of being able to use your content to achieve a lot,” he added.
The media specialist who took a critical appraisal of media industry operations as against the outbreak of Covid -19 pandemic in the country observed that the industry transformed for the better as the operators had learnt positive lessons owing to the pandemic.
“The pandemic have taught us a lot of lessons; it demystified some of the things we thought were impossible before; people could actually produce their paper and do broadcasting without getting to the office. People now use new gadget that have changed the way they used to do things because there’s a shift in terms of approach”
“We see efforts to catch up and there’s a lot of progress. It is not just about us; we have so many other players in the field, but we’ve not done badly. The challenge has to do with understanding what is digital in the sense of light, it’s a new world where there are so many players,” he said.
He further averred that media practitioners need to be trained to be able to fit into the digital world, while linking lack of patronage on media businesses to digital gaps.
“There are lots of financial issues that we need to bother about and that’s a big problem because if you are not making revenue, you can’t even live up to your expectations, especially now that you even need more resources to invest”.
