The ongoing Annual General Conference of the Guild of Corporate Publishers (GOCOP) has witnessed more empowerment of members through specialised trainings, one of which is titled ‘Monetisation of Digital Media Business; Earning Beyond Advertising and Sponsored Content’ at Radisson Blu in Ikeja, Lagos Nigeria.

The topic was presented by Dr Monday Ashibogwu, Group Chief Executive Officer, Billsbox Services Limited and Publisher, Quick News Africa.

He alerted publishers that advertising built on pageviews was getting weak as audiences have moved to other platforms. He attributed the recent trend to the increased use of search and artificial intelligence tools to answer readers before they reach a publisher’s website.

He however argued that Nigerian online publishers hold an asset that advertising undervalues, which he named as unusually high audience trust, adding that the task is to convert this trust into income.

He examined six non-advertising revenue streams (membership, events, training, data and intelligence, licensing, and products and services) through global, African and Nigerian cases.

Two years ago, he pointed out that GOCOP was keen to learn about publisher revenue, saying there is now a worrying shift.

He said: “First, audiences are leaving the publishers’ front doors, as confirmed by the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026, which surveyed nearly 100,000 people in 48 markets.

“The next is that the traffic publishers relied on is thinning. He said analytics covering more than 2,500 news sites show that referrals from Google search fell by a third worldwide between November 2024 and November 2025. Publishers expect a further fall of 43 per cent within three years.”

The third, he said, is that money follows the audience; hence, an advertising model built on pageviews cannot hold when the pageview is captured by a platform, or when an artificial intelligence summary answers the reader before that reader ever reaches the publisher.

He pointed to a warning by the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) of a possible media collapse. He said Nigeria feels the decline seriously.

He also pointed to options, one of which he mentioned as reader revenue through membership, mentioning a foreign newspaper that has 1.4m readership membership, earning over 126 million pounds in the year ending March 2026.

He also mentioned ‘events and convening power’ as another prosperous stream of revenue available to publishers.

Dr Ashibogwu said: “The calendar is on our side. With the 2027 general elections approaching, there is a ready demand for candidate debates, policy dialogues and town halls at state level. A credible online publisher is well placed to host them, on one condition: every participant is charged on the same published terms, so that the platform is never for sale to one side.”

He mentioned stream four as training and service services, while stream five is data, research, and intelligence. He reminded publishers that have covered beats over the years to note that they were sitting on data mines.

On licensing and collective bargaining, he raised an alarm, saying some other entities were using content by Nigerian publishers to make their own money. “In July this year, following a joint petition by the Nigerian Press Organisation, of which GOCOP is a member, the President directed the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to investigate how Meta, Alphabet, X and the generative AI companies use Nigerian news content.

“We should not wait for the outcome before we prepare. We need agreed data on our traffic, our archives, and our costs, and a fair formula for sharing whatever is won among 127 members, large and small.”

He also mentioned products, services, and commerce.

He offered some solutions but asked how a publisher with staff and a tight payroll begins. First, he urged publishers to own their audience. “A follower on a platform is borrowed. The Continent, a Pan-African weekly, built its readership by delivering a newspaper directly on WhatsApp,” he said.

Dr Ashibogwu added: “Start a newsletter and a WhatsApp channel this month, and comply with the Nigeria Data Protection Act as you collect. Next, choose a niche. General news is a commodity. Readers and clients pay the publisher who knows one sector, one state or one community better than anyone else.”

“Start with one stream, not six. Pick the one closest to what you already do well, run it for 90 days, and measure it. Protect the newsroom. Every one of these streams creates a customer who may one day be the subject of a story. Our trust rating is the asset behind all six streams. If we spend it, we have nothing left to sell. Give revenue an owner. Income that is everybody’s job becomes nobody’s job”, he said.

The expert told members that the advertising era taught the publishers to count visitors to their sites, but that. “The next era will reward those who count relationships: members, delegates, trainees, clients and licensees.”

He went on: “Industry forecasts cited by the Reuters Institute put Nigeria’s media market at about $540 million by 2029, roughly half of it digital. The question is how much of that will reach the people in this room.”

He recommended that each publisher leave the conference with one new stream and a 90-day test.

He also recommended to the Guild to constitute a standing committee on revenue and licensing, so that when the regulator’s work is done, members could come to the table ready to negotiate. “We have the trust of the audience. Let us now build the business that trust deserves,” he added.

Meanwhile, Malachy Agbo, the founding president of GOCOP, now Enugu State Commissioner for Information, who was present, applauded the progress made by the Guild.

He expressed happiness at GOCOP’s growth and influence, saying the desire of the founding fathers of the Guild was to promote credible digital journalism and to sanitise it because online media was emerging and some people complained about the proliferation of online media among other issues. He said he and earlier leaders of the Guild, including the late former GOCOP president, Dotun Oladipo wanted anybody who joined GOCOP to understand the burden of truth and credibility.

He said he was happy that the GOCOP of today is still upholding the philosophy of credible journalism from him (Agbo) to Mojeed Musikilu to Dotun Oladipo to Dr. Maureen Chigbo and now Danlami Nmodu mni. He gave some pieces of strategic advice on how to sustain the spirit and progress of the Guild.

•PHOTO: Dr Monday Ashibogwu, Group Chief Executive Officer, Billsbox Services Limited and Publisher, Quick News Africa, making a point while presenting his paper titled, ‘Monetisation of Digital Media Business; Earning Beyond Advertising and Sponsored Content’, day one of the GOCOP Annual Conference held on Tuesday, October 7, 2026 in Lagos.

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