Local journalism seizes the opportunity and changes the game

Revenue 1,500 billion VND/year

Considered a bright spot in diversifying press revenue sources in the context of economic fluctuations, Vinh Long Radio and Television Station has a revenue of up to 1,500 billion VND/year. In 2023, Vinh Long Television Station paid the provincial budget 780 billion VND and was paid 4 million USD by Youtube.

Talking about the agency's revenue sources, Mr. Le Thanh Tuan - Director of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station said that revenue from advertising activities accounts for about 85% - 90% of the station's total revenue.

As for radio advertising, this is a form of advertising that has received attention from many businesses in the years 2000 - 2010, with many forms such as advertising spots interspersed with live radio programs such as music, news... or sponsorship through health consulting programs, educational consulting, enrollment consulting,...

"Currently, this source of revenue still plays a certain role and in our opinion, radio is still an advertising channel with potential for development," said Mr. Le Thanh Tuan.

Headquarters of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station.

To generate revenue on radio, according to Mr. Tuan, the station currently conducts many live and livestream programs, early news bulletins that quickly inform about recent events, in an effort to reach and attract the public on many different platforms on cyberspace.

On television, since 2014, Vinh Long Radio and Television Station has started to cooperate in program production. On average, each year, the station cooperates in producing 40-50 programs. These joint programs are very diverse in genre: from reality TV shows, game shows to short films, children's films and science programs, etc.

"Through joint activities, the station has mobilized social resources to invest in program production, contributing to attracting sponsorship and advertising, contributing significantly to the station's revenue and stabilizing its revenue," Mr. Tuan emphasized.

Mr. Le Thanh Tuan - Director of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station.

Cecilia Campbell, Marketing Director at United Robots, Trusted by Leading Publishers for Automated Content, said: “It is predicted that local news organizations will seize the opportunities that technology offers to expand their coverage and reach more readers. The benefits of AI can save independent and small local news organizations a lot of time and effort. They can quickly collect documents, guides, recommendations and many other internal related elements, automatically summarize meetings and public documents, create tweets and social media posts… This could be a game changer for news organizations that are strapped for staff or resources.”

Regarding revenue on digital platforms, the Director of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station stated that, based on the actual situation of the shift of advertising from traditional newspapers to digital platforms and social networks, the Station has gradually expanded the distribution of multi-platform, multimedia content, making efforts to exploit social networks to bring content to audiences, generate revenue, and stabilize advertising revenue.

"The station's digital infrastructure currently includes the Electronic Information page, THVLi free TV viewing application on the internet, THVLaudio free radio listening application on the internet. Social networking platforms include: 48 YouTube channels, 23 Facebook Fanpages, 4 Tiktok channels, 1 Instagram channel, 1 X channel, 5 Zalo channels, 1 Threads channel, 6 Myclip channels, 5 Dailymotion channels. Initially, the station has also achieved some results. The digital audience of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station has continuously increased every year; at the same time, contributing to bringing in new revenue for the station", said Director Le Thanh Tuan.

Create a unique direction with the "specialty" of livestreaming

Recently, at the meeting between the Vietnam Journalists Association and the Thai Journalists Association, Mr. Chavarong Limpattamapanee - Chairman of the National Press Council of Thailand, Senior Advisor to the Thai Journalists Association gave many compliments to Tuyen Quang Newspaper for its livestreaming of the International Journalism Conference "Management of digital press offices: Theory, practice, experience in the ASEAN region" organized by the Vietnam Journalists Association last year. "A local press agency but producing livestreams of international stature" , Mr. Chavarong commented.

Journalist Mai Duc Thong - Editor-in-Chief of Tuyen Quang Newspaper.

Sharing about the journey of applying technology and implementing digital transformation in the newsroom, journalist Mai Duc Thong - Editor-in-Chief of Tuyen Quang Newspaper said that in the context of digital technology, the Editorial Board of Tuyen Quang Newspaper has set a goal of being determined to implement digital transformation. Accordingly, it is necessary to transform from the thinking and awareness of staff and reporters to the management of the newsroom and content production.

"We have a "revolution" that changes awareness and the way of doing things," journalist Mai Duc Thong emphasized and said that in terms of in-depth innovation in print journalism, newspapers start by changing the way each work, each page, and each issue is presented. Electronic innovation starts with the creation of multimedia works.

The newspaper has applied AI to image processing in print, graphic design, reading multimedia news on online newspapers, podcasts, and visual news; using ChatGPT to find topics, support script building, and other editorial tasks. The application of AI has shortened the time to produce multimedia products, provided many suggestions, and found a variety of topics.

According to journalist Viet Hoa - Head of the electronic department of Tuyen Quang Newspaper, from 2020 to now, Tuyen Quang Newspaper has conducted more than 200 live broadcasts and more than 200 livestreams.

"With the motto "wherever readers are, Tuyen Quang Newspaper is there", in addition to distributing newspapers in the traditional way through the Post Office, we have promoted the distribution of Tuyen Quang Newspaper on social platforms such as Facebook, Tiktok, Youtube, Zalo, creating a strong spread, affirming the position of Tuyen Quang Newspaper in the hearts of readers", journalist Viet Hoa shared.

Mr. Viet Hoa said that in the past, when talking about live television, people only thought of the tasks of Radio and Television Stations, with modern, massive equipment such as "color cars", satellite signal transmission cars worth tens of billions of VND, accompanied by dozens of staff, technicians, and reporters. But for Tuyen Quang Newspaper, the implementation of live television programs is much simpler.

With a set of equipment worth about 500 million VND, combined with available cameras, sound mixers, and at least 6 people including directors, technicians, and reporters, the newspaper has organized programs from simple to complex. " The programs are broadcast live on the newspaper's web platform and social networking platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Live broadcasting on digital platforms has become a "specialty" brand for Tuyen Quang Newspaper," said Mr. Hoa.

Quality of human resources and diversification of content delivery methods

Recognizing high-quality human resources as one of the biggest challenges in the digital transformation process, journalist Mai Duc Thong - Editor-in-Chief of Tuyen Quang Newspaper said that Tuyen Quang Newspaper still lacks highly qualified IT engineers to do network administration, data administration, and digital platform development. Sometimes in some cases, reporters and editors feel helpless when having to depend on technicians to solve their work; the change from offline working to online working or multi-platform working has made many reporters and editors unable to keep up.

Tuyen Quang Newspaper regularly opens training courses to improve skills in producing modern journalism works.

Tuyen Quang Newspaper invited experienced journalists from journalism schools, VTV, VOV and VNA to train them on how to make TV reports, podcasts, produce videos using smart devices, make talk shows, create SEO-standard content for online newspapers, especially applying AI technology to creating works, and how to make live TV programs on digital platforms.

"After each training content, the Editorial Board assigns specific targets for reporters to implement and discusses how to do it. In particular, the role of the head of each department is especially important," said the Editor-in-Chief of Quyen Quang Newspaper. Along with that, the Newspaper recommends that the province supplement technical equipment to meet the development of electronic newspapers in the direction of multimedia, multi-platform, and application of technology in production.

"Always listening and understanding the tastes and needs of the audience, from there planning content and arranging programs to suit the audience's requirements" is an important factor leading to success, emphasized by Mr. Le Thanh Tuan - Director of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station.

In addition, to achieve such impressive results, the station has always been proactive in innovating and improving the quality of its programs, both ensuring the successful completion of the political tasks of the press agency and meeting the cultural enjoyment needs of the people. In addition to self-produced programs, Vinh Long Radio has promoted the effectiveness of socialization, with a flexible and effective cooperation mechanism. And when the program attracts audiences, businesses will come in to promote their products.

"We build a reasonable advertising attraction policy to retain traditional customers and exploit potential customers," said Director Le Thanh Tuan.

The Director of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station emphasized the very important factor of technological innovation in program production, storage, searching and broadcasting as well as transmission to multi-platform viewers, including solutions to diversify content provision methods, bringing the content of radio and television programs of the Station to digital platforms to expand the domestic audience market share and to overseas Vietnamese.

Hoa Giang

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/bao-chi-dia-phuong-nam-bat-co-hoi-va-thay-doi-cuoc-choi-post309428.html