The Nation to cease print edition and focus on digital market

By The Nation

 

Somchai Meesen, chief executive officer of Nation Multimedia Media Group, speaks to Nation TV yesterday about The Nation’s future.

 

THE NATION newspaper will stop its print editions and go fully online from July 1, when the independent English-language daily turns 48, to focus more on its core online readers including those based abroad, the top executive of the company that owns the paper said yesterday.

 

Somchai Meesen, chief executive officer of Nation Multimedia Group Plc (NMG), said the decision by the management was aimed at halting The Nation’s financial losses, in addition to expanding its market.

 

“Over the past five years, The Nation has lost Bt30 million a year on average,” he said.

 

The CEO, citing a survey, pointed out that only 36 per cent of The Nation’s readers are based in Thailand while the remaining 64 per cent live overseas, including 25 per cent in the United States. He said that meant most of the newspaper’s readers did not buy its paper editions, and they read its reports and articles from the website and through different digital platforms. 

 

Typical readers of The Nation are aged between 25 and 40, and mostly prefer to read news from smartphones rather than a printed newspaper, he said. 

Somchai said that as the market for new media was growing, old media businesses like newspapers were fast declining. This could be seen in the continuing decrease in the advertising budgets for publications – down 20 per cent a year on average, compared to an annual 20 per cent growth for new media. 

 

“The new management has considered this matter carefully and decided that The Nation newspaper has to change its platform from print media to online, in order to better cater to the target group,” he said.

 

 

The CEO said that The Nation’s online edition would also provide an audible version. He also unveiled plans for a Mandarin version from October “because at present more than 10 million Chinese visit and invest in Thailand”.

 

He assured there would be no retrenchments due to the change in platform. “The editorial staff and employees of The Nation will continue with their work. There will only be a shift in focus from print to online,” he said. 

 

Somchai blamed NMG’s previous management for its cumulative debt of Bt1.57 billion, which he said “almost bankrupted the Nation Group”. The CEO said the previous management had made a serious blunder in bidding for the Channel 26 digital TV licence at a cost of Bt2.2 billion.

 

“In the fifth decade of operations, Nation Group will focus on our core business – providing news content,” he said.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30369542

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-05-17

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I can't imagine many people will notice its absence from the newsstand. 

Will they also be cutting out the sensationalist stories on TV also? and  how about questioning the govt on their calculations of the 38  million O-A  visas?

1 hour ago, Inn Between said:

I can't imagine many people will notice its absence from the newsstand. 

Guess  Ill have to buy toilet  paper  now then????

1 hour ago, gunderhill said:

Guess  Ill have to buy toilet  paper  now then????

Yeah, shame they ditched Plan B which was to make the print edition quilted with perforations.

3 hours ago, Inn Between said:

I can't imagine many people will notice its absence from the newsstand. 

 

1 hour ago, gunderhill said:

Guess  Ill have to buy toilet  paper  now then????

Was never any good for that anyway. Every time I  pooped I ended up with a black bum from the poor newsprint quality. Only way I could remove was to use that other paper we can not mention. ????

3 hours ago, Inn Between said:

I can't imagine many people will notice its absence from the newsstand. 

Not from the news stand. But when I have a nice breakfast in a restaurant or hotel I like to look at a real newspaper.

4 hours ago, Inn Between said:

I can't imagine many people will notice its absence from the newsstand. 

If you were able to read, you would

5 hours ago, webfact said:

“Over the past five years, The Nation has lost Bt30 million a year on average,” he said.

This is the fault of Westerners. Government needs to charge a newspaper fee for long-stays from English speaking countries who are not buying enough copies of this publication. 50,000 baht per year should do it. 

4 hours ago, gunderhill said:

Will they also be cutting out the sensationalist stories on TV also? and  how about questioning the govt on their calculations of the 38  million O-A  visas?

Interesting that they're ceasing operations on 1st July, the same day the mandatory insurance starts on Non O/A applications, the subject of yesterday's front page (mis)reporting. 

It is a challenging time for all newspaper companies all over the world. I enjoy both English publications, The Nation & Bangkok Post. Having more than one newspaper ( or a news agency website) on the internet is always a bonus. 

Always sorry to see a print paper close down but sadly that will be the fate of many in the future.Moving to a financially sustainable digital platform is by no means easy.

Too bad about the references to newspaper (jokingly of course) as are swipe. Most civilized farangs here have adapted to the more hygienic arse'n all of bum guns.

Thankyou for helping us.

 

Signed

The Trees.

 

if they end up making a profit maybe they can hire some real journalists and translators..

Better move the servers outside of Thailand too, given the anti-junta articles they publish here from time to time. Singapore is the obvious choice.

Sadly, I expect the Bangkok Post to folow suit. In my area of Bangkok there used to be 5-6 outlets to buy the paper, now there are none.

8 minutes ago, khunken said:

Sadly, I expect the Bangkok Post to folow suit. In my area of Bangkok there used to be 5-6 outlets to buy the paper, now there are none.

I haven’t seen either of the English language papers on sale for a long time. 

9 hours ago, edwinchester said:

Yeah, shame they ditched Plan B which was to make the print edition quilted with perforations.

You could have had mine after Id  used it  making it even more  recyclable????

Maybe if they did that long ago they would not have made losses. Just think what real investigative news would be worth (silver bullets) under a junta.

if they end up making a profit maybe they can hire some real journalists and translators..

Sent from my SM-A730F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

9 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Not from the news stand. But when I have a nice breakfast in a restaurant or hotel I like to look at a real newspaper.

Me to but surely not THE NATION ????

Darn!  The Nation, and some coconut husk, was always so useful.  ????

 

 

I'm going to miss doing the crossword and sudoku.

2 minutes ago, 55Jay said:

Darn!  The Nation, and some coconut husk, was always so useful.  ????

 

 

I know what you mean, it had it's uses

 

I don't think I have read, let alone purchased a printed newspaper in 10 years. 

 

A similar amount of time has past since I watched anything but on demand video, or payed for cable. 

 

It's been almost 30 since I listened to the radio. 

 

Times change. 

The Nations topics were/are akin to the UK paper "Star on Sunday"

Good news for the Bangkok Post, I guess. 

12 hours ago, gunderhill said:

Guess  Ill have to buy toilet  paper  now then????

Thought that was what you were already buying ????

1 hour ago, metempsychotic said:

I don't think I have read, let alone purchased a printed newspaper in 10 years. 

Only seen them at the barber shop and at the hospital. Must be over 20y since I bought the last one, I think it was Bild when they still had the page 3 girls before PC destroyed it all.

Always sad to see a newspaper disappear.  They tried, in an increasingly frustrating and difficult marketplace.

It will not be replaced by anything more likely to inform us what is really going on here.

Computer Crimes Act etc etc.

Bangkok Post, keep pushing.  When they warn you not to 'cross the line', keep finding ways to rub it out.