Standard Newspaper's One Billion Shilling Investment Program

As the smoke continues to go up at Kimathi street, home of the Nation media group, rival Standard group recently announced an ambitious one billion shilling investment program. On the surface there is hardly anything out of the ordinary about this for a company whose flagship product, The East African Standard was launched in 1902 and is by far the oldest newspaper in the region.

After all, only recently shares of the company started trading on the main board after years on the second tier market of the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

Keen observers however did not fail to notice that out of the two banks funding Kshs 600 million of the investment programme (the rest will come from internal sources within the Standard group) one can qualify to be called a Standard group sister company. The Commercial Bank of Africa majority shareholders are the same people who are also the majority shareholders of the Standard group. Namely the Moi family. That is why it was so amusing to hear CEO Isaac Awuondo give the "solid reasons" why his bank had accepted to fund the Standard group expansion programme. The other bank funding the project is CFC bank.

There is little doubt that this latest move will greatly help the Standard group's KTN to fortify its' position as Kenya's leading Television network. Despite stiff competition and the entry of the Nation group into the business, KTN has been unshaken and there is no doubt that no other station in the region understands television like the folks at Nyayo House.

The newspaper is however a different kettle of fish and there are those who would argue against the purchase of the state-of-the-art new printing press just now.

If truth be told, ever since the Daily Nation changed direction from a circulation-oriented daily to a newspaper that relies more heavily on advertising to meet it's quarterly budgets, (in the 90s) The Standard has never really managed to re-position itself effectively. It is as if the newspaper has had two competing minds. The first has made a serious stab at trying to fill the circulation vacuum left by the Daily Nation's change of direction, which has mainly been attempted by sensational headlines with little or no content to back it up. On the other hand, the newspaper has also struggled unsuccessfully to regain its' position as the top ad revenue generating newspaper in the country.

Still it is worth noting that the circulation boosting efforts by Standard newspaper executives seem to have been at least good enough to cause a strange incident last year where some unknown people were going round newspaper vendors in Nairobi paying them not to display the Standard newspaper.

Many feel that it may have been a wiser move to hold off the investment in the new press until the newspaper is surer of the way forward.

However it is also true to point out the fact we are in an election year and by simply playing second fiddle to the Nation, the Standard is bound to break all circulation records filling in where the Nation will have quickly sold out. So the new press is probably justified just for this reason alone.

A Kenyan safari of a lifetime at a price you will not believe.