Newspaper vendors and sales representatives in Osun say their businesses are no longer lucrative due to the prevalence of online media outlets.
Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Osogbo, the vendors and sales representatives said that online media had reduced sales of hard copies. They said that it was affecting their means of livelihood and survival.
Oladayo Salau, a newspaper vendor at Old Garage, Osogbo, said there was little to no sales due to online media. Salau noted that he had been in the business for over 15 years. He said that the only patronage he now enjoyed was from those who placed adverts announcements of change of names and needed hard copies for reference.
“The patronage of newspapers these days is very bad and it is because the news that will come out in the newspaper the next day is already online a day before.
“People now see news in the hard copies newspapers as stale or old news.
“For vendors like me, we are not making money again, except from few who want to effect change of their names in the dailies,” he said.
Salau said that the vendors also got occasional patronage from people who do not have internet-enabled mobile phones and those who need to read the newspapers for vacancies and pay a token thereafter.
“But generally, the sales is very poor and can no longer sustain my means of livelihood.
"We have appealed to the publishers countless times to stop providing their news online, but they insisted that they cannot stop it”, he added.
Kasim Madamudola, a newspaper sales representative, said that he had stopped selling newspapers for some months due to low patronage by his buyers. Madamudola, who sells newspapers at Baruwa junction in Osogbo, said that people now prefer to use their mobile phones to get the needed information to buy newspapers. He said that the situation had led to the collapse of his vendor business.
Another newspaper vendor, Shola Akiolu, said that people have not bothered to buy newspapers again since the advent of online media. Akiolu said that newspaper readers preferred to buy data on their phones to get the needed news and information. He, however, said that small sales from sports newspapers were what he was using for survival.
"I have reduced the number of newspapers I now collect to avoid debt and loss of profits”, he stated.
Deborah Akinloye, a newspaper vendor at Iyana Offa in Osogbo, said that the newspaper business was no longer the way it used to be. Akinloye, who said that she trained two of her children with the profits from the sales of newspapers, said that the online media was making things difficult for her.
"Things are very bad now. People no longer come to buy newspapers again due to the online version.
"Even some of the private organisations that I used to supply newspapers no longer patronise me.
"Before now, the profits I made from the newspaper sales was what I used to carter for my family, but I have to look for something else to support my family due to poor sales”, she noted.