SECTOR 2 2.13 The advertising market is large enough to support a diversity of media outlets. Botswana’s thriving economy is able to sustain a diversity of media outlets and there is room for up and coming media houses to establish themselves if they are able to identify a niche market that will attract the right advertisers. The major corporations in Botswana wield immense power in terms of their adspend. Both the larger media outlets and the small media houses rely heavily on advertising support from the mobile network operators, large commercial banks, mining companies and national supermarket chains. A great deal of power is also concentrated within advertising agencies that handle advertising budgets on behalf of their corporate clients. Even if a media outlet contacts the head of the organisation for advertising, he/she will defer to the agency, which makes the ultimate decision. “The private sector is robust and thriving but there is a great deal of inefficiency,” which impacts on the smaller media outlets because adspend may be large, but payment is received after 90 days. On paper the media outlet may seem to be thriving because they may have received a huge amount of advertising. However, they may have current outstanding debts which they cannot service because the advertising agency has not paid them for the advertising. The mobile phone network operators have monopolised the print media industry by taking ‘ownership’ of the front page shoulder strip of all the major print media products. There are a number of clients who actually advertise, but if you can’t get the mobile networks, eventually there will be a problem. “For smaller papers, it could account for 30% of their revenue.” The advertising market is layered and there are pockets of power and influence that impact on both sustainability and content. The large budgets allow the major corporations to dictate the editorial direction taken by media outlets. Large corporations, and in particular mobile phone network operators, have never had “negative stories” written about them. In some cases the influence can take on a more subtle form – e.g. the owner of a large supermarket chain did not retaliate in an obvious manner when his business was exposed in the Botswana Guardian. Instead the Botswana Guardian “would be hidden by other newspapers and magazines” on the newsstand. Obviously, this resulted in a decrease in sales until the Guardian threatened to report the supermarket chain to the Competition Authority. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER Botswana 2014 41