KUALA LUMPUR: Media Prima Bhd is forging ahead with technological-based changes amid challenges in the media sector.
“The consequence of technology is that the cost-base strategy that we used to deploy have become a bit of an irrelevance,” said its recently-appointed group managing director Datuk Kamal Khalid to NST Business at the Khazanah Megatrends Forum 2017 here today.
“We now have come to a point that we need to reinforce the fact that we need to be bolder in the choices that we made. A lot of the choices we made (are) because a lot of the business strategies we (used to) deploy either have to be broken or replaced.
“It (the technological push) has just accelerated the need for us to change our business strategy in order to stay relevant. That said, we are still offering services that are relevant to the community but how we deliver that services have to change,” he added.
The group on Monday ceased to offer physical copies of all three of its newspapers namely the New Straits Times and Malay dailies Berita Harian and Harian Metro in Sabah and Sarawak.
The group had also earlier this year bought Southeast Asia’s leading digital company Rev Asia Holdings Sdn Bhd (Rev Asia) for RM105 million.
Following the acquisition, Media Prima saw its digital platform audience reaching up to 10.4 million, thus making the group the third largest digital media company in Malaysia after Google and Facebook with 15.7 million and 14.1 million visitors respectively.
When asked if Media Prima will be making anymore technological-centric investments in the future, Kamal said: “It is not so much in acquiring in new technology but deploying the technology that we already have. “It is not just a question of investing in technology, but figuring out how that technology can be a solution to our challenges.”
He stressed that group will continue to focus on its strength and its strong branding through its newspapers and television channels.
“I think it is a question of examining our strengths, and making sure capitalizing our strengths and get our content and products in the way that they want it. We want to produce content in the most efficient manner as possible,” Kamal said.