Graphic goes digital
Readers of the Graphic brand of newspapers will, from today, have the opportunity to access all contents and pages of the company’s products on a digital platform.
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That will be after the launch of the first digital commercial version of the brand of newspapers by the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre in Accra today.
The move is to add a digital version of each brand to the hard copies currently on sale and make them more widely accessible on the web for Ghanaians abroad, as well as foreigners who want to access local news and any other persons who desire to read the papers online.
The newspapers are the Daily Graphic, the Graphic Business, the Graphic Showbiz, The Mirror, the Junior Graphic and the Graphic Sports.
An earlier version, dubbed the ‘BETA version’, which was launched in June 2015, allowed subscribers access to 16 pages of the Daily Graphic and eight pages each of the Graphic Sports, the Graphic Business, the Graphic Showbiz, The Mirror and the Junior Graphic at 12 noon every day for free.
However, from today, subscribers who pay to access the newspapers will have the full content of the hard copies in a digital form on their smartphones, tablets, computers and other devices.
With the Graphic news app, subscribers can download the digital form of the newspapers which will be in pdf format on their Android or App store on smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices with an application known as Graphic news.
The digital version of the newspapers, which will contain all the pages of the various brands, will also allow advertisers more visibility, since they will also have their adverts on the digital version of the newspapers.
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Changing trends
The introduction of the digital newspapers is in response to changing trends in the newspaper industry and the current lifestyle of readers, there being evidence that most patrons of newspapers are now migrating onto online platforms where they spend more time than before.
The introduction of the digital format will, therefore, mean that readers can have access to the hard copies, as well as the ones to be made available in soft copy.
Currently, in Africa, there are few digital newspapers, such as the Daily Maverick of South Africa, Frontpage Africa of Liberia and the Morocco Times.
In an interview, the Director of Marketing and Sales at the GCGL, Ms Shirley Acquaah-Harrison, said the full version would be available by 5 a.m. every morning and stay on a device for two weeks.
She noted that the content from the digital version could not be transferred, saved or shared.
“It will just be a repeat of our newspapers that readers are used to and it has all the stories, adverts and other publications that will appear in a particular issue of any Graphic newspaper,” she added.
Discount packages
At GH¢1.25, she said, subscribers could have access to the pages after making payments through mobile money or using visa cards from all over the world in any currency.
On discount packages, Ms Acquaah-Harrison stated that a number of them had been outlined to encourage more people to subscribe to the digital version of the newspapers.
“Subscription for one year will go with a 20 per cent discount; six months goes with a 15 per cent discount, three months goes with 10 per cent and one month goes with five per cent,” she explained.
She added that the weekly brands did not have discounts, adding, however, that a discount could be given if the regular buyer was subscribing more than two brands.
“The package is such that the more subscription you make, the less the price to pay,” she stated.
The digital newspapers, she said, were expected to complement the services of Graphic Online, adding that the online also had a way of promoting the digital form, and vice versa.
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Graphic’s previous milestones
The Graphic Group, which was founded in 1950, has, over the years, responded to changes in the newspaper industry with the rebranding and addition of new features to each of the papers.
Key among them has been the rebranding and relaunch of the company’s flagship newspaper, the Daily Graphic, which made it reader friendly with the introduction of Quick Response (QR) code scanners that allow readers to access audio-visuals accompanying stories.