What's going to happen to the UAE media?

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Over the years I have asked this question many times on many media, and occasionally predicted the end of the road for expansion. And yet the sector has carried on growing, adding a couple of national papers and an English language TV news channel over the past year alone.

But the advertising famine is very noticeable this year. I have been interviewed by a couple of smaller magazines about my book, and could not help but notice that their latest editions had just a couple of ads.

Even the new national newspapers are struggling – barely half a page in one 40-page paper last week. The blame of course rests firmly on the collapse of the Dubai real estate boom late last year.

Gulf News

The venerable Gulf News has cut its five daily property sections down to two, and its property magazines look as though they have been on a diet.

In this advertising environment it is hard to see how everybody can survive. Some organizations have deeper pockets than others, some are so well established that they continue to attract enough advertising to be financially solid.

But who will be the casualties? The newest players? The smallest and barely read? Or will every organization slim down and expand again in the future?

The last suggestion is the least likely as competitive theory demands winners and losers in a free market recession where even the government owned media are going to have to justify their existence.

You also have to consider how media is changing with the ongoing shift to electronic media and Internet channels. Much of the Dubai print media goes straight in the bin, after auditing, and its ads are never seen.

Internet audits

The Net media by contrast are almost embarrassingly transparent, and struggle to produce real readership figures that come close to the pure fiction of many rivals, particularly those like TV and radio that are impossible to audit.

However, the future is already with us in the free electronic media which is daily more convenient and user friendly. Around the world many magazines have already dematerialized and cast off their printed form to go purely online as Internet pages.

It is easy to see why: cost saving on printing and production is one way to survive in this competitive jungle. So overall, a rationalization and consolidation of the Dubai media around the Internet looks inevitable, and the Great Recession will accelerate this process.