Turan News Agency Director Mehman Aliyev has submitted Proposals on the Ways of Media Development to Vugar Safarli, Executive Director of the State Assistance Fund for Media, according to a press release disseminated by “Turan”.
The priority goals are conduction of wide-scale study of economic state of media, including financial condition of editorial offices, amount of advertisement market, printing services and press distribution. Results of the study should help to determine the strategy and instruments for solution of press problems.
Aliyev proposes the following as the main criteria of assistance to newspapers; assistance via additional scheme determined for every sold newspaper and journal. The newspaper should get 10 gapiks per each sold copy, which is officially confirmed by the press distribution company. Initial calculations show that subsidy for all print editions makes 6 000000 (six million) AZN because 60 000000 (60 million) newspapers are sold a year.
Calculations for internet editions can be done according to the number of local IP clients. Since their expenses are a lot less than mass media, the subsidy can make 5 gepiks for each visitor.
A special attention should be paid to the institution of social advertisement for the newspapers. Cost of such advertisement must depend on number of sold newspapers or visitors of internet media.
It is also proposed to make amendments to the law to stimulate media advertisement market and provide state assistance to improve printing services and restore the newspaper distribution network throughout the country.
A special attention should be paid to the problem of access to information and improvement of journalists’ professional training, according to the proposals.