Author(s)

Caroline Kalombe¹, Jackson Phiri^2*

¹Graduate School of Business, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia.
²Department of Computer Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia.

The newspaper industry must continue to innovate and find ways in which to harness technology and employ business models that will not only help it save costs but also increase revenue for the firms. The aim of this study was to identify the major challenges based on Miles and Snow on how online media is impacting print newspapers revenue in developing countries and how these challenges could be addressed in order to improve print newspapers revenue collection. The study focused on Zambia a country in Southern Africa. The study was based on a population drawn from seven print media houses in Zambia, five from the private sector and two from the government. The participants include the Zambia Daily Mail and Times of Zambia from the public sector. The other five from private sector include the Daily Nation Newspaper, the Mast, the Voice, News Diggers Newspaper, and the New Vision. The study used a questionnaire as a research instrument with a population of 180 and the response rate of 56.1% to collect the quantitative data. SPSS version 20 was used to analyze quantitative data based on descriptive statistics, correlation and regression. The results indicate that, the threat of online media on printed media in developing countries is growing. The statistical computed value from Pearson Chi-Square test P-value of 0.034 which was less than 5%, indicate the positive influence of lower cost of E-paper through the subscription pricing and how this eventually affects the print media pricing, sales and revenue collection. The results also show that E-Papers are cheaper through subscription and easy to access by the mases as the cost of the Internet continues to decline. This is reduction in circulations and revenue from advertisement as most advertisers are now focused on online media platform where they are able to reach clients through various platforms. These factors have led to notable reduction in print media sales as readers flock to online media platforms, thereby, reducing circulation of newspapers.

Print Newspapers, Online Media, Convergence, Miles and Snow Framework, Zambia Media, Electronic Media

Kalombe, C. and Phiri, J. (2019) Impact of Online Media on Print Media in Developing Countries. Open Journal of Business and Management, 7, 1983-1998. doi: 10.4236/ojbm.2019.74136.