Now Is the NEXT Season – Onwordi

From every indication NEXT is here to give the likes on Punch, Guardian, Thisday and the rest of them a good run for their money. This fact is not mistaken when  one engages in a chat with    Mr. Toni Kan Onwordi, Director Marketing & Strategy, NEXT Newspapers, on why the newspaper became a daily. “Now is the NEXT season,” he says.
Having spent thirty three weeks as a Sunday paper, NEXT, last Monday, started daily publications. To ensure that the daily editions gets round and starts on a good footing in terms of circulation, the NEXT management decided that paper will be circulated free in its first week of operations. Vendors were cited at bus stops and other strategic places within the Lagos metropolis sharing free copies of the paper throughout last week. Reports reaching M2 reveal that it was not different in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital.
That the newspaper is published by Timbuktu Media, which was founded in 2004 by Mr. Dele Olojede, first African Pulitzer Prize winner and former Foreign Editor of the New York Newsday, whose career spans over some 85 countries, definitely adds more substance to this premium publication. So far, the paper can be said to be living up to its essence which is to “affect every part of the media industry on the African Continent and demonstrate certain new ways of doing things.” But many media critics still reason that it is too early to celebrate, citing a number of instances where various publications have started so well only to become extinct in the long run.
The first thing that will attract the attention of anyone who picks a copy of the paper is the design which was done by the duo of international newspaper designers, Mario Garcia and Ron Reason, who designed newspapers like The Nation (in Kenya) and The Standard (in Harvard). Apparently designed by two of the best hands in the industry, questions regarding the ample use of pictures, bolder type size, airy layouts which makes the paper appealing to the eyes have been put paid to. This was perhaps NEXT’s first catch. But one will notice that the daily editions do not share some of these characteristics, most especially the size, and this might not be unconnected with cost considerations.
Talking about cost, Timbuktu Media Publishing, the publishing house, initially found solace in Dubai and London, where they could get their desired standard of print “at the right price”. But that was before they set up their state-of-the-art printing press located in the Oregun office.
According to Mr Kan, NEXT intends to operate on 70 % subscription and 30% vendor sales. As such, the management will be working towards printing to demand, in collaboration with Tequila (the subscription agent). This mode of operation, relatively, can be said to have worked for the paper, based on available information from the company that compared to the 400 subscribers the paper had last month, the number has increased significantly to over 1,700 subscribers. A raffle draw that will ensure that a subscriber enjoys a trip abroad every month (from August- December) has also been put in place to ensure that the readership base increases significantly in a short time.
The editorial content, which is generally conversational, has so far dwelt on good story presentation which allows for easy read. With several pages on News updates, Metro, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Money, Food Matters and Sports, among others, the paper is trying to cut an appeal that cut across all age groups.
The fact that the paper has dedicated some pages for people to air their opinion shows the papers poise to serve as a platform for the expression of various shades of opinion. Mr. Kan also made it clear that NEXT will not kill any story but will make sure that all stories will be delivered as balanced as possible. A reader of the paper, who asked for anonymity, however, opined that NEXT can only achieve that if it can, as much as possible, steer clear of close relationships with Nigerian politicians because “they are the most dubious people to mingle with.” Time will however tell how non conforming-to-pressure the stories let out to the public will be. For the paper to get a pass mark from him, a loyal reader of the paper says that will be dependent on the paper’s ability to serve him stories that are not common place in other newspapers.
Following the path others have trod and are still treading, NEXT has an online version (234Next.com) which is said to have crashed three times the day Michael Jackson died as it was the only local online newspaper that had the story in the first few days of the artiste’s death. With about 10,000 hits (breaking news from around the world) on a daily basis, the website has been described as “hot”.
With an editorial team that includes the top notches in the print journalism industry such as Gbenga Ogunleye, Olukayode Thomas (winner, CNN African Journalist of the Year Award), Dapo Olorunyomi, Okey Ndube and Dele Olojede himself, a publication should not go wrong.
The paper is currently available in 12 Nigerian cities including Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Jos and Minna.