Taking the next leap forward — the Graphic story
When Cecil Harmsworth King Jnr established what is today’s Ghana’s shining light in the Media landscape-Graphic Communications Group in 1950, print media then had taken a firmer hold as the new technology across the world.
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Since then, the Graphic brand has evolved and so has the world and the advancement in technology especially the media space. Graphic over the course of 74 years has become the market leader and the most credible media brand in Ghana.
Through this credibility, the brand extension into The Mirror, Graphic Sports, Graphic Showbiz, Graphic Business, Junior Graphic newspapers and the Graphic Digital in recent times have seen each of these brands become market leaders in their segments.
Indeed, such is the power of the Graphic Brands that when the country opened up the airwaves for media plurality almost three decades ago, most media houses modelled their newspapers along the Graphic masthead.
Even radio stations had to use the content of the Graphic brands as their guide post for their own content creation. Some online brands have survived today purely on the back of “bold plagiarism” of Graphic reports and intellectual property.
Indeed, most radio stations are still very much dependent on Graphic brands for their morning show programmes and talk shows. The most popular weekend radio talk shows by Accra-based radio stations for instance were actually built on the back of what Graphic reported, and they still do.
That has been the power and influence this brand yields in the country’s media space. Besides being the most credible brand, we are at the forefront of writing, documenting and chronicling the events that shape the history of this country through our brands and our digital archives.
However, like every facet of business in the current global media technological age, all traditional media have had to rethink their business, so is the newspaper industry worldwide. The online media has become complimentary or competitive depending on where your strategy sits in terms of the media landscape.
So, the news that government through the state, (the sole shareholder) has given the go ahead for the company to raise additional capital on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) may have come to many with mixed feelings and rightly so.
Workers, former workers, competitors and our cherished audiences alike who are sentimentally attached to the brand are concerned.
For a state media house such as Graphic, which generates its own revenues, pays import duties on all our supplies and pays taxes and dividends to government like any other commercial entity, it is indeed a sign of a remarkable leadership that such a state entity has survived 74 years as a brand.
It is again another testament to what the brand stands for and the resilience it has built over the years irrespective of the political/economic challenges.
And we dare say, the future can only be bright for the group with the right resources and strategy.
Therefore, the decision by the government to list the shares of the company on the stock market is a sound one.
One, that Graphic Business believes was not taken lightly in the midst of the competitive nature of the industry and the shift in the consumer reading habits globally.
For Graphic Business, this decision can be seen in the light of taking the next leap forward and must be given every push it deserves.
Graphic Business believes all the lingering questions agitating various minds and who have rightly so questioned such a move by the state to divest its shares in a state media such as Graphic would be answered in due course.
Lest we forget, GOIL, SIC insurance, GCB Bank and many other State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) took the same route to become financially solvent and efficiently run companies as the stock market has stringent rules on the use of public money.
Every ambitious business needs additional capital. So is Graphic Communications Group Ltd, which has set it eyes even higher-to ....“tell the African Story”, as its vision encapsulates.
How do we therefore tell the African story if we remain a mono-media platform?
Ghana needs Graphic to tell its story objectively, accurately and fearlessly as it has done so over the past 74 years. The next phase will however, define this objective.