Samip, Code for Africa call for Cape Town media innovators to pitch products [Updated]

The SA Media Innovation Programme (Samip) and Code for Africa are calling on media innovators in Cape Town to apply to attend the Perfect Pitch 2 competition which will be held during Code for Africa‘s Media Indaba Extra which takes place from next Tuesday to Thursday (27-29 November).

Samip is a media initiative that seeks to accelerate digital media innovation among independent media outlets in SA.

Perfect Pitch 2 — which will take place next week Tuesday (27 November) at Code for Africa’s offices in Cape Town — will focus on revenue streams and business models.

Perfect Pitch 2 follows another pitch competition Samip held earlier in the year in Johannesburg at the Duke Menell Media Exchange

Entrepreneurs, journalists and media owners with innovative revenue generating projects or innovative business models, can apply here to pitch at the event.

In order to be eligible for the competition, applicants should have organisations that have been in operation for a minimum of six months.

Perfect Pitch participants will have the opportunity to pitch their media products and solutions to an audience of news media thought-leaders with constructive criticism being given after their presentations.

The winner of the pitch event will be awarded a mentoring session with Samip advisory committee member and Burn Media Group founder Matthew Buckland.

Perfect Pitch 2 follows a pitch competition Samip held earlier this year at the Duke Menell Media Exchange in Johannesburg.

‘Print media is not dying’

While the media sector has been shaken by recent announcements of pending retrenchments in a number of big media houses — most notably at Tiso Blackstar and Independent Media — Buckland believes that print media is not dying.

“Print media will never die, and here is an analogy to explain why: If online media is an electric heater, then print media is a fireplace.

“Electric heaters are modern, efficient, clean and easy to switch on and off. Fireplaces can be dirty, smelly, need wood, matches and takes a small operation to get going.

“You would have thought that electric heaters would have replaced inefficient, old-fashioned fireplaces a long time ago. But they haven’t.

“Although we may use fireplaces a bit less; we still enjoy sitting in front of them. Why? Well much like print media, we enjoy the experience. Both mediums have a role to play, and have entirely different purposes,” he says.

‘More efficient business models needed’

Buckland believes from a print point of view, what will save the industry is more efficient business models. “That may mean publishing less often, publishing less pages or exploring new verticals, or changing the makeup of staff,” he says.

He says from a digital publishing point of view, the advertising model has been disrupted massively by the Google and Facebook duopoly, which he believes has a better advertising model than online media.

“Online media’s salvation is to look at extending their business model beyond just display advertising, and extend their brands into other types of activities such as brand studios, events, research and more.

“I have also seen native online businesses move into print, creating print publications that are run efficiently as profit centres.

“Online media also needs to innovate in their advertising offering, which has essentially stayed the same for the last 20 years (namely, banners), and this is already happening with native advertising innovation and more premium, better placed display banner ads,” he says.

Disclosure: Matthew Buckland is the founder of the Burn Media Group which owns Ventureburn.

Featured image: fancycrave1 via Pixabay