Dear Stakeholders,

I am honored to present to you the Group Chief Executive Officer's report for 2024. At the outset, I would like to express my gratitude to the Board for the confidence it has bestowed on me, with the appointment to the position of NMG's Group CEO. I look forward to working alongside our dedicated staff, partners, and other stakeholders to build on the company's strong legacy.

I am glad to have joined the Group at such a pivotal time in its transformation journey, and, even as I settle into the role, I am excited at the prospects of strengthening the Group's position through leveraging on the solid foundation it has, backed up by a commitment to investing in required talent and resources to tap into the great opportunities the new media presents.

I am excited at the prospects of strengthening the Group's position through leveraging on the solid foundation it has, backed up by a commitment to investing in required talent and resources to tap into the great opportunities the new media presents.

Operating Environment

The economy across East Africa was poised to rebound in 2024, driven by the growth in tourism, transport, and service sectors. However, macroeconomic vulnerabilities persisted. High inflation, elevated public debt, and constrained development spending dampened the business environment.

In addition to the macro factors highlighted above, the media industry across the region faced other notable challenges, including increasing curtailment of press freedom, disruption by social media and a growing prevalence of misinformation, which significantly impacted our overall performance.

Notwithstanding these challenges, the Group demonstrated strong agility and resilience, stepping up the pace of implementing the transformation plan in general and introduction of digital assets in particular, in furtherance of diversifying the revenue base.

Performance Highlights

Despite the year-on-year decline of 12.5% in total revenue, the Group recorded a growth of 11% in its digital business. This was attributable to improved monetization of our digital assets which benefitted from an increase in the audience to 62.4 million users, up from 60.2 million in the same period last year.

Cost of sales for the period reduced by 18.9%, partly due to the decline in turnover, while our continued focus on cost containment and increased digitization of our business processes led to a reduction of 17.2% in operating costs.

Group loss before tax for the year at Shs 0.3 billion was marginally lower than the previous year, reflecting the impact of a challenging macroeconomic environment, subdued consumer spending, and rising prices of basic commodities.

Strategic Initiatives

Substantial progress was made in the implementation of our digital transformation agenda, the highlights of which are enumerated below:

• We adopted a data-based user needs model to ensure we created content that fostered meaningful engagement with our audiences. This shift allowed us to focus more on content which contextualised the subjects being reported on, giving in-depth information, linking similar stories and hence offering better appeal to our audiences.
• We fast-tracked our Newsroom Integration Project and created dedicated desks that focused on topical subject pillars such as technology, social justice, climate, and pop culture. I am glad to report that arising from this initiative, 83% of our content was, in the first instance, delivered digitally as at the end of 2024.
• We continued to position NMG as a trusted source of information, reflecting the realities and interests of today's audiences; including the youth and female demographics, having identified opportunities to grow our reach and engagement through serving more relevant and targeted content.
• Additionally, we offered more exclusive and in-depth content in multi-media formats (digital, video and print), which supported an increase in the proportion of chargeable content across our publications. Notably, Business Daily increased the proportion of its premium content to over 50%, clearly demonstrating an enhanced value proposition and appeal to its audience.
• We on-boarded a new and diverse cohort of opinion writers to better reflect the mix of the society we serve and address the underserved younger demographic. We also developed diaspora-centered content to better serve the interests of the region's citizens living abroad.
• In Uganda, Monitor Publications Limited launched a Sustainability Hub focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues, producing impactful content on climate, health, and gender.

We leveraged our product portfolio to not only generate revenue but also deepen our engagement with our audiences and stakeholders through events. Some of the impactful and revenue-generating events we hosted in the year included: Nation Digital Summit, International Women's Day, Mancave, Top 40 Under 40 Men and Women, Somalia Investment Conference, Rising Woman Initiative (held in Uganda and Tanzania), Top 100 Survey (in Uganda) and the Climate Change Forum (Tanzania).

We leveraged our product portfolio to not only generate revenue but also deepen our engagement with our audiences and stakeholders through events.

Broadcasting

Kenya: Despite the rise of digital media, the Media Council of Kenya's Market Research Report 2023/2024 highlighted that over 76% of Kenyans still consume content through television, while 77% engage with radio content. These insights reaffirmed our belief in the value of progressing with the planned investments in broadcasting to strengthen our broadcast offerings.

The primary focus of the investments in broadcasting is to step up the quality, relevance, and appeal of the platform's content, alongside enhancing the infrastructure set up for delivery of the content to the desired standards. Commissioning of new programming got off to a flying start, and whilst still early days, some of the new content has rapidly captured the attention of the market.

The station's new flagship cross-platform (television, radio and digital) morning show, Fixing the Nation, which takes an unflinching look at the challenges facing Kenyan society and the solutions to address them through live engagement with the public, government, corporates, and civil society, remarkably attained a daily average reach of one million within only two months of its launch. The positive feedback has heightened our view on the potential and opportunities presented by the market for appropriate content.

Uganda: As part of our efforts to improve content formats and production, Monitor Publications Limited (MPL) launched the YOTV Streaming-for-Pay Platform, enhancing digital content access and monetization. This initiative enabled diaspora and mobile-first audiences to access content seamlessly, resulting in an over 100% increase in paid subscribers.

In addition, programs such as Morning@NTV, The Spot, and On the Spot were streamed on X, Facebook, and the NTV(U) website, enhancing audience interaction and civic engagement, leading to a 24% increase in premium article views.

Tanzania: Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) launched MwanaClick, a platform offering Tanzanians seamless access to quality content. Through this platform, users can access daily news, videos, articles, books and more effortlessly from their phones.

Technology

In 2024, we invested significantly in our technical capacity, with a focus on building consumer-responsive technology stacks, collecting first-party data, automating our development operations, and introducing engineering practices and flows that improved our innovation time-to-market.

Amid growing concerns around Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Group developed an AI framework to integrate this technology into its operations. This framework rigorously assesses content quality and creativity while upholding our commitment to credibility and originality.

By fully utilizing various AI tools, we achieved numerous benefits, including workflow efficiency, enhanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and improved data analysis. These advancements have enabled us to deliver more personalized content and engage consumers more effectively across our platforms.

We also introduced Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) to enhance investigative journalism by providing verifiable, data-driven insights. This strengthened our storytelling, built audience trust, and positioned us as a leader in evidence-based journalism.

In line with our commitment to innovation and partnership, we co-hosted an inaugural two-day hackathon with Strathmore University that brought together top technologists, academia, engineers, and creatives to explore the potential of generative AI and other digital tools in media. Proposed solutions which showed promise to create significant impact in our business are being evaluated further, and if proved viable will be adopted for implementation.

Talent

The Group continued to embed a digital-first, customer-centric and inclusive culture in the organization, with emphasis on performance and collaboration as key pillars in our value system to support our agility and responsiveness to evolving audience needs.

During the year, we concentrated our training programs on upskilling our teams in leadership and digital capabilities, both of which are crucial in the attainment of our “North Star”.

An enhancement in the quality, relatability, and capacity of our on-air and execution talent in broadcasting through recruitment and training delivered a notable uplift in the quality of the content delivered to our platforms.

A significant number of NMG employees were recognized on the world stage for their outstanding contributions, a testament to the Group's commitment to and supporting talent development. During the year, the Group received ThirtyThree awards in Kenya, Twenty-Five in Uganda, and Ten in Tanzania..

Several journalists were accepted into the prestigious regional and international programs, such as the 2024 BBC World News Komla Dumor Award, and the Reuters Journalism Fellowship.

Daily Monitor received the Platinum Best Newspaper of the Year award at the West Nile Quality Brands Awards 2024, while our Editor-in-Chief, was appointed to the World Editors Forum Board.

ESG

Our goal is to implement a comprehensive ESG strategy that enhances accountability, strengthens strategic decision-making, and ensures long-term compliance, thereby enabling us to create sustained shared value for all our stakeholders.

In the period, we focused our efforts on minimizing our environmental footprint, fostering inclusive and equitable communities through journalism, and upholding the highest standards of transparency and ethical governance. We also trained departmental champions to embed ESG principles across teams, strengthening our capacity for sustainable practices to drive meaningful change.

Going forward, we will center our focus on driving top-line growth while expanding margins through innovative solutions and operational efficiency.

Looking Ahead

Despite ongoing challenges in the macroeconomic environment, I remain confident in our strategy to drive achievement of our growth ambitions. Going forward, we will center our focus on driving top-line growth while expanding margins through innovative solutions and operational efficiency.

We will broaden our content offerings, paying deliberate attention to women and youth-centered content, to better serve diverse audience segments. Strengthening our technical capacity will also be key to boosting efficiency and unlocking new growth opportunities across our platforms.

In our broadcasting division, we aim to continue pursuing targeted initiatives to enhance content quality, audience reach, and revenue generation. We will maintain our commitment to building capacity within our teams and foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and high performance, to drive our transformation agenda forward.

We have resourced top talent across our content and technology teams and are confident that their expertise will drive us towards future success.

Appreciation

In conclusion, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to our customers and audiences, whose loyalty fuels our innovation and growth.

I am also immensely grateful to our dedicated employees for their resilience and commitment to the Group’s mission, and to our Board of Directors and Shareholders as well, for their invaluable guidance and support.

I am confident that our strategy, centered on digital transformation combined with the talent and dedication of our team, will drive sustainable growth, and create lasting value for all our stakeholders in the years ahead.

I look forward to engaging with all of you as we embark on this exciting new chapter together.

Asanteni sana