The Truth About The "Silly" Regular Debates About The Nation and Standard Newspapers Circulation Figures

Business Special


Too often I come across the following statement on the net, especially in the days before the Nation exposed Anglo-leasing and in effect silenced many of its' critics;

"Standard circulation is rising rapidly and will soon overtake that of the Nation."

In one particular discussion forum I came across the other day, there was this guy who insisted that they were very experienced and were already sure that the Standard newspapers circulation had overtaken that of the Nation. I read it and laughed, as you will when you are through reading this post.

The best way to understand anything really well is to dive back into its' historical background. That is the guiding principal of this blogger when writing about Kenyan politics and it has helped this blog stand out in terms of political commentary and sheer understanding of the Kenyan political scene today.

Started in 1901, the East African Standard was the only newspaper in Kenya for six decades (that's over half a century). The Nation only showed up in 1960 as the country was on the verge of getting its' independence. Its' founder the Aga Khan correctly read the winds of change blowing over colonial Kenya in those days and made one of the best investment decisions he has ever made. Already a few "local" publications mainly written in Kiswahili (the gutter press of those days) had started appearing on the scene and were enjoying brisk sales, especially in the estates where the Africans lived.

It was not surprising that the Aga Khan's new media company started off with a Swahili title called "Taifa". Naturally the English title that followed soon after was a direct English translation of this title and was called The Nation (to be more accurate the Sunday Nation).

It was a difficult start. The people with the cash (mainly the settler community) all read the East African Standard. Still the market the Sunday Nation was targeting was huge and set to start rapidly growing as soon as Kenya attained independence.

From the beginning the newspaper consultants brought in to help set up the new media company knew that they would have to target the masses and go for a very high circulation. So a system designed to do exactly that was set up. One of the ingenious ways of distributing the newspaper that the Nation came up with was that of setting up street vendors who hardly existed in those days. To this day the senior Nation management still behave like they own the newspaper vendors. Recently, there was a move by the Nation management in conjunction with the Nairobi City Council to legalize a standard newspaper stand designed for all newspaper vendors in the city that would make it impossible for them to display anything else other than the Daily newspapers. Studies clearly showed that the Nation was losing sales to magazines and the gutter press, not to the Standard or other rival dailies like the Kenya Times or People Daily.

This distribution system set up by the Nation circulation department reached well into remote parts of rural Kenya and has for years enabled the newspaper to enjoy unrivaled circulation and reach. The simple truth is that you cannot out-sell the Nation if it is available in many places where your newspaper is never seen.

So why doesn't the Standard just set up a distribution system that is equal or better than that of the Nation? Good question.

The truth is that they have tried many times but it has never quite worked. The concept in the minds of Kenyans that is virtually impossible to change is that The Nation is the leading newspaper. So picture this situation where the Standard sets up a new distribution point in a remote place where the Nation does not reach, they even finance the vendor to launch their business. But then everybody starts asking for the Nation, so you can guess what the vendor does. They dump the Standard and start selling The Nation. In effect the Standard helps its' rival to set up yet another new distribution outlet. This sort of thing has been going on for years.

While it is true that at the beginning of the Narc administration (right up to the Anglo-leasing episode) the Nation was reading more and more like a Narc government hand out, The East African Standard never came anywhere close to unseating The Nation. It did not matter that there was a time when it was clearer the better and more balanced newspaper as far as the local political scene was concerned. Marketers will tell you that you never outsell somebody who has more distributors than you do, especially when the difference is in the thousands.)

You can now laugh about that fairy tale concerning Standard newspaper sales rivaling those of the Nation.

(To be continued Next week, look out for an informative "Business Special" post about the Newspaper wars in Kenya and how this bloggers' thriving publishing business was a victim of dirty tactics from the staff at a leading Kenyan newspaper. Look out for Newspaper Wars. Subscribe to my free email newsletter now and I'll alert you the minute I publish stories in this series on the Kenyan media business. This fascinating series will run for weeks to come. Send a blank email now to KUMEKUCHA-SUBSCRIBE@YAHOOGROUPS.COM)

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Nancy Burpee is a world class paralympic swimmer, who has set world records in the 50 and 100 yards freestyle but was disqualified and thus effectively locked out from the 2004 Paralympic Games held in Athens, Greece on a procedural technicality. Law firm simmons jannace & stagg represented her in an effort to have the disqualification overturned and argued that the Australian referee showed bias against Ms. Burpee by making various comments indicating that the Australian referee did not want Ms. Burpee competing against an Australian paralympic swimmer at the games.