An agreement has been reached with professionals in the press sector to set up a solid partnership with a view to developing a program responding to the immediate constraints of the sector and examining the means of coping with it in the long term, announced on Friday in Rabat, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Othman El Ferdaous.
It was also agreed to form a joint working group to deal with issues of interest to the sector, the minister said in a press statement following a meeting with industry professionals to examine the issues. of the written and electronic press sector, including the constraints linked to the coronavirus pandemic.
During this meeting, which took place in the presence of the president of the National Association of Media and Publishers (ANME), Abdelmounaim Dilami, the president of the Moroccan Media Federation, Kamal Lahlou, the journalist Ahmed Charai, as well as Fouzi Lekjaa, budget director at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Othman El Ferdaous noted that “the press sector needs a special development model”.
For his part, Abdelmounaim Dilami indicated that the meeting was “very positive” and was devoted to the various problems of the sector, in this case the constraints linked to the exceptional health situation generated by the Covid-19 epidemic and the structural issues plaguing the media sector.
The coronavirus pandemic “has clearly shown the important and fundamental role” that the media play in society, because they contribute “with great efficiency and a high patriotic spirit to its cohesion”, especially since The sector continued to work during the three months of sanitary confinement in very difficult conditions and without income or remuneration, he said.
He added that “the sector suffers from structural problems and therefore needs structural solutions”, noting that it was agreed within this framework to extend all the constraints and to examine the question of the “restructuring of the sector” of so as to strengthen the national media and contribute to their rationalization to make them more prosperous and efficient.
He added, in this regard, that it had also been agreed to urgently set up a commission, comprising economic experts and others charged with accelerating the development of appropriate solutions in this area, noting that “the State is aware of these issues and will take action on them, which will be announced in Parliament. ”
Speaking at a meeting of the Committee on Education, Culture and Communication in the House of Representatives, Othman El Firdaous stressed in this sense that press companies should differentiate between the journalistic aspect and the entrepreneurial aspect that requires specific skills related to knowledge of market rules and logic in order to develop the journalistic product, noting that in the context of its support for the press sector, the Communication Department provides support to the press company in the strengthening of its economic model “which results in the continuous revaluation of public subsidies, passed from 45.8 million dirhams (MDH) in 2005 to almost 58.71 MDH in 2020”.
A certain number of measures were taken in favor of the press before this crisis, recalled the minister, explaining that the department, being aware of the difficult socioeconomic context which the supports of the written and electronic press cross, announced on 24 Last April, the opening, in coordination with the departments of the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Administrative Reform, of the deadlines for submitting requests for public subsidies in favor of the press bodies already beneficiaries as well as for those who wish to benefit for the first time. And to add that the ministry is studying these requests in preparation for the meeting of the joint commission, in order to grant public subsidies to press companies to meet their financial and social obligations, in particular with regard to employees, and to continue their services.
Othman El Ferdaous explained that 135 grant requests were received, including 40 relating to the written press, 22 to the regional press, 29 to the electronic press and 4 requests from beneficiary newspapers in the context of pluralism. The ministry also received 8 grant requests for the first time, and 32 requests from electronic media outlets, he added.
As for the measures planned to deal with the repercussions of the pandemic on the future of the national print media sector, the Minister considered that they should be done in concert with professional organizations having a good knowledge of the situation and the specifics of the journalism sector, in order to put in place a complementary strategy and action plan, adding as such that the ministry is preparing to launch, as soon as possible, the debate with publishers and professional unions to assess the impact of the crisis on the sector, identify current constraints, and develop an integrated strategic vision aimed at proposing solutions and plans to promote the press sector, according to a precise timetable, with clear procedures including the results and impact can be measured with concrete indicators on the ground.
Turning to the advertising sector, one of the main elements to revive the economy, the Minister affirmed that the communication department contributed to the organization of this sector by including a title dedicated to advertising in the written press or electronic in the law of the press and the edition, and inserted other provisions in the law n ° 77.03 relating to the audio-visual communication.
Citing the latest studies in the area of advertising, the minister noted that the advertising market started 2020 on a positive note, adding that despite the fact that the impact of the pandemic has started to take hold. feeling from the second half of March, the first quarter of the year recorded an increase in advertising investments estimated at 3%.
According to a study carried out by “Imperium Media” on the fallout from the crisis on the media, advertising on television and on electronic media jumped by 6% and 4% respectively, while the share of other supports decreased in a way noted, especially for the print media which has been suspended and adopted an alternative electronic format, said the minister. As a result, the downturn rate of the latter reached -62%, making its share did not exceed 11% of the advertising budget, estimated at 1.4 billion dirhams during this period (against 1.38 billion in the same period of 2019), while the rate for radio was -38%, and that for billboards was -32%.
In addition, the Minister also decided on the role of the public pole in the media support and the cultural and educational framing at the time of the pandemic, thanks to the intensification of the daily coverage and direct correspondences of the various parts of the Kingdom.
In this regard, he highlighted the report produced by the High Authority for Audiovisual Communication on the support, from March 19 to April 9, 2020, of public and private radio and television services of the epidemiological situation and the efforts made to stem its spread.
In this context, he stressed that the national radio and television company (SNRT) has reserved a significant portion of its programming to support the evolution of the epidemiological situation, by broadcasting learning courses for all study levels, (from primary to university), on the Athaqafia, Arryadia, Laâyoune and Tamazight channels, in order to contribute to the institutionalization of distance education and to the dissemination in Arabic, Amazigh and French languages, as well as in sign language of awareness capsules throughout the day to simplify many concepts and procedures that the Kingdom has adopted.
Throughout the period from March to June 12, the Al Aoula channel also broadcast 624 television news programs, 80 exceptional bulletins including 450 live calls with experts and actors in various fields and from all over the Kingdom, in addition to the ‘reception on the set of 70 guest news, the production and dissemination of 3,050 media reports and coverage, in accordance with the principles of balance and credibility, on the epidemiological situation and the measures taken to overcome its repercussions.
Othman El Ferdaous welcomed the fact that all the radio stations, in turn, produced and broadcast a set of information and awareness programs on Covid-19 in social, health and economic terms, and broadcast university courses in coordination with the presidents of universities. The programming of national television channels has, for its part, been modified to adapt to the national effort to confront the pandemic through exceptional programming for the broadcasting of fun programs, capsules, awareness programs and JT.
The 2M channel, the minister continued, has broadcast numerous educational and cultural support programs for children, adolescents, young people and women adapted to the nature of the epidemiological context and its repercussions, making know that in addition to its usual cultural and educational programs, the channel has created new programs and continued to broadcast a series of documentaries.
The minister noted that Moroccan television channels have managed, in the context of the health emergency, to recover a large segment of their audience, achieving high ratings for many of their programs, according to statistics from the company “Marocmétrie”, specialized in audimetry. And to conclude that the measures of sanitary confinement pushed the Moroccan viewer to spend more time in front of the television compared to ordinary days, the average hours having reached 5 hours, against 4 hours to 4 and a half hours before, according to Marocmétrie .
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