DUSHANBE, July 9, 2009, Asia-Plus — Tajik media note that the global financial crisis has affected them significantly.
Heads of 38 Tajik media, including 32 print and 6 electronic media, have been surveyed on this subject.
Asked whether financial crisis hit them, 92 percent of the polled media answered in the affirmative.
Asked about the volume of damage caused by the crisis to them, 73 percent of those surveyed said that their incomes had fallen on average 10 to 35 percent. Some of them even said that their incomes had fallen up to 80 percent.
41 percent of the surveyed noted that it could not be ruled out that they would be forced to suspend their business.
The crisis has seriously affected purchasing power of the print media audience. The crisis has forced some 63 percent of print media in the country to reduce their circulations.
In the meantime, the majority of media in Tajikistan are not in a hurry to reduce their staffs. Only 30 percent of the polled media said that they had reduced their staffs. Such a situation is connected with the fact that media have experienced an acute shortage of skilled personnel since before the financial crisis struck last fall.
Heads of all media noted that they needed funds for coming out of the crisis. However, the mentioned amounts are different, depending on the size of media and region of broadcasting – from 7,000 to 120,000 somoni.
Practically heads of all media irrespective of forms of property said that they needed financial and technical assistance of state-run and international organizations.
40 percent of those surveyed noted that tax reductions and additional sources of income (state investments, grants, commercial actions, projects, etc) could promote survival of media during the financial crisis.
The survey was conducted in the framework of the roundtable meeting, entitled “Media under Conditions of Financial Crisis,” which was held in Dushanbe on July 2 on an initiative of the Tajik Branch of Open Society Institute/Assistance Foundation (OSI/AF-Tajikistan) and Tajik Journalists’ Union.
You may find the poll results on the website
www.asiaplus.news
.
