Is hard hitting news being drowned out on social media? Or are Kenyan audiences simply looking for something else?
There is an old saying in sports; Father Time stays undefeated. This timeless adage is true on the field as it is in corporate boardrooms. Big heritage brands always come round to facing a ubiquitous challenge; How do you replace ageing, legacy consumers with a younger generation of equally loyal customers? From our research, Kenya’s establishment media seems to be at this vital crossroads. Not only are they fighting for relevance, but they are doing so in an information landscape that has dramatically changed from what they encountered in their formative years. Not only has the landscape changed, but today’s news consumer also happens to be of a generation that is more exposed than any other to the distractions and diversions of digital media. News is now competing for attention with everything from memes, games to cat videos. The end result is that there now is a high level of indirect or background exposure to news through social media, online conversations or Whatsapp groups. In other words, today’s audience does not seek the news; instead it comes to them.
The very visible dissatisfaction that Kenyans seem to have with the news they receive points to the idea that news organisations could be struggling to remain relevant
We set out to understand the state of digital news consumption in Kenya by analysing close to 176,514 posts released in 2019 on Facebook and Instagram from a sample of 16 news media outlets. One thing that came out clearly is that people still want the news. Even for younger audiences, news still serves the fundamental human need to connect people to the goings on of the world around them. However, the formats, topics of interest and channels of delivery have radically changed.
Below are some further findings from our study;
Establishment media is dominant on Facebook due to their prominent offline presence.
In our previous research on influencers, we saw how TV coverage still greatly affects who becomes popular with audiences and who doesn’t. Citizen TV’s Facebook asset seems to be another clear case of the effect of TV coverage in an increasingly interconnected media environment. Leaning off their position as the most viewed TV station in Kenya, Citizen is also number one among all media houses, in terms of both overall interactions and video views on Facebook.
While Citizen TV holds the pole position on an individual basis, Nation Media Group enjoys a diversified portfolio (NTV, Daily Nation, Nairobi News, Business Daily) whose combined interactions is significant. Their two biggest offline assets, NTV and Daily Nation, command the largest share of audience attention in terms of interactions and video views. This further demonstrates the effect that a prominent offline presence can have on digital consumption and distribution.
The big media players mostly use their digital assets as an extension of their larger offline assets. Their video content largely consists of edited TV clips with little optimization for news feeds and some articles are lifted directly from print and published online with little tweaks. In some ways, they are forcing their own medium on to digital platforms rather than adjusting the story for the platform. So far, for a handful of them, this approach is yielding good results. However, there is a larger majority including The Star, Standard Media, K24 and KTN who seem to be underperforming online compared to their offline presence.
Smaller, digital-first players are punching above their weight
One thing that surprised us in the course of our measurement was the position of purely digital players like Tuko, Kenyans.co.ke, Pulse Live and Mpasho on our ladder. Considering the significant advantage that traditional media giants have going in, when it comes to harnessing audiences online, this crop of news outlets is punching way above their weight. Tuko News are number three based on audience interactions on Facebook while Mpasho are number two in terms of video views despite both not having any TV or print presence.
These digital first news outlets share the following in common;
- They take a mobile first approach to content creation. Most of their videos are in square format and have thumbnails & conversational tag-lines that arouse curiosity. A simple comparison between their video pages and big media’s pages reveals the clear differences in approach to how content is served up to audiences.
- These outlets employ a more flexible approach to news gathering, which gives them the freedom to serve the different news moments that consumers go through. From the outside, it seems like they are focussed on telling stories in ways that better fit the moments when young people are open to news.
Are media operators failing to connect with audiences on Instagram?
From the data we have seen so far, Facebook seems to be a much friendlier environment for news outlets than Instagram. Outside of Citizen TV, Instagram news consumption and audience interaction is outrightly ruled by the digital first players led by Pulse Live. We infer that this scenario reflects the fundamental disconnect that traditional media have with how digital media operates.
As seen on Facebook, the outlets are forcing their offline medium and storytelling on to online platforms, but with very little success on Instagram. A key difference with Instagram is that it is dominated by personalities rather than organisations. Due to this, our data shows that media is clearly losing out to influencers in the race for audience attention. Instagram has a very specific aesthetic and persona that many newsrooms are struggling with, but influencers have perfected. To illustrate this point, look at what happens when we add a top performing mid-tier influencer like Natalie Tewa to one of the Instagram graphs.
News items on Instagram (video especially) often appear as if they haven’t tried to adapt to the new environment at all and the audience is failing to respond as a result. It remains to be seen how media outlets can tailor their content for this hyper-competitive platform and attract audiences like they do offline.
What does all this tell us about audiences?
Beyond the rankings, we went ahead and analysed the top performing content from the news outlets to understand what exactly was driving the best performance.
On Instagram, Citizen TV is completely dominant and it’s interesting to note that their strategy on Instagram is different compared to what they put on Facebook.
We believe that looking at the nature of the content in this ranking could help us glean unique insight about what digital news consumption looks like. A lot of the content in the table above is not what you would classify as “hard news”. As such, this raises the important question of relevance and impact of news today. How do we ensure the hardest hitting stories are the ones that resonate with audiences the most? Does the audience find it relevant to their needs? Is there a way to increase the appeal of so-called “hard news”? Much of the excitement and gravitas for younger audiences is on the periphery of the news space (infotainment, lifestyle, culture, bloggers and vloggers). Given that Kenya’s social media audience skews heavily towards youth, it’s no surprise that the digital-first outlets are getting good results with their content. On the other end of the spectrum, it’s also evident that these are not traditional news brands’ areas of strength. It’s clear that digital audiences have an appetite for broader content pieces outside the category of politics and the kind of news formats that traditional outlets give them.
You can view the top 10 pieces of content from each news outlet we sampled here and here. Comparing across media outlets, you’ll be able to get a good sense of what captured the collective attention of Kenyans in 2019.
It’s not just outlets like Tuko or Kenyans.co.ke alone that fulfill this need, influencers are also bridging this gap by developing expertise in various areas like fashion, food or fitness. Content is fighting with content for prominence on people’s newsfeeds and inboxes. There are numerous influencers in our database that have more engagement and video views than many media houses on our list, yet they cover a limited array of topics. In this contest for attention, influencers are actually a direct competitor of media players and a lot of them are serving a real need for consumers. For example, if you talk to connected urban consumers today they’ll most likely tell you that the newspaper is not where they look to for fashion advice or fashion news, yet chances are, this was the case not too long ago.
To Conclude
It’s very clear that the landscape has changed and the news media may now need to tell stories in ways that fit the expectations of connected consumers, and the different moments which they interact with news. This entails creating content in more formats that are native to mobile and social platforms as well as incorporating these ideas into their own websites if need be. It will be interesting to see what kind of investments are made in storytelling formats going forward, because they are fundamental to how audiences spend time on mobile and with news in general.
Curious? Have any feedback? Follow us on Twitter @Odipodev or reach out to us on team@odipodev.com
