Victor Ezeja
AdminFour years after the last increment was implemented, the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN) yesterday approved an increase in the cover prices of newspapers in the country.
In a statement titled: “Changes in Newspaper Cover Prices”, signed by its Executive Secretary, Feyi Smith, NPAN explained that the decision followed a thorough review of the prevailing economic situation in the country.
The newspaper proprietors listed galloping inflation, the devaluation of the naira and the skyrocketing cost of production as some of the factors considered before the resolution by the organisation.
“With effect from January 2, 2024, members of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN), will affect changes in the cover prices of their newspaper titles.
“Our association took this difficult decision after a careful review of the current economic situation and our members’ production costs.“In the last few years, inflation and the devaluation of the naira have had very serious negative effects on our members’ production costs and eaten deeply into their profit margins,” NPAN stated.
Despite the difficult operating environment, NPAN said its members retained the current cover prices for over four years, while inflation more than doubled within the same period.
The body while acknowledging the negative effects of the tough economic climate by the readers, explained that it is for that reason that publishers had borne the brunt of high production costs for the last four years without adjusting cover prices.
“We hope that this price increase would meet with the understanding of our readers even as we continue to do our best to take advantage of technology and better collaboration amongst publishers to improve the quality of our products,” it stated.
In line with the NPAN decision, ThisDay has raised its cover prices to N400 for daily and Saturday newspapers, with the Sunday publication copy per unit now N500.
In a statement by the management, it stressed that in the last several years, particularly since the last cover price increase in 2018, the costs of producing the newspaper had continued to increase.
“With high inflation arising from naira depreciation and unstable exchange rate, increasing production costs have forced an unsustainable subsidy on us.
“In the circumstance, we are constrained to, from 1st January 2024, slightly adjust our cover prices of The Daily and Saturday Newspapers to N400 and The Sunday Newspaper to N500,” the statement read.
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