The Nation Media Group net profit for the six month period to June 2023 fell by an astonishing 98.8 per cent to just Sh. 2.9 million.

This comes as Kenya’s mainstream media sector continues to suffer an unabated decline with the rise in digital consumption of news, a shift to digital marketing, and low purchase of hard copy newspapers.

In the latest financial results, the decline was a steep fall from the Sh. 247.8 per cent net profit that was recorded in the same period the previous year.

In the period under review, profit before tax crashed to Sh. 10.8 million from the Sh. 354 million that NMG recorded the previous year in the same period.

Reacting to the fall of the Nation Media Group net profit, the board blamed it all on the depreciating local currency and the high costs of importing production materials.

The NMG turnover in the period fell by 4.5 per cent to Sh. 3.5 billion from Sh. 3.7 billion.  At the same time, total comprehensive income fell to Sh. 190.5 million from Sh. 219.4 million that was recorded in the first half of 2022.

Income attributable to owners of the firm fell to Sh. 176.8 million from Sh. 218.8 million during the period under review.

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“We continue to focus on innovation to develop products that resonate with audiences through an experiment-driven development approach to accelerate monetisation of our expansive digital footprint, the NMG Board said. The board did not recommend the payment of any dividend.

To raise revenues, the NMG is set to reinstate paywalls on its news websites. The paywalls were lifted in 2022 in a move that was protested by the ousted former editorial director Mutuma Mathiu.

The paywall will see consumers pay to access content on the media house’s main website in what is being termed as a shift from quantity to quality.