Podcast transcript: Episode 6 - Business of Free

Transcript

Host: My name is Ada Irikefe and you're listening to the Experience Pod. The Experience Center podcast series discusses the adoption of relevant emerging technologies and trends for impact-oriented professionals and individuals who demand realistic and thought-provoking perspectives on the opportunities and challenges presented by these phenomena in our unique environment. 

Our topic today, ‘Business of Free’ explores the growing media industry, its evolving business models and how this industry is being shaped by technology. The question remains; how many of us pay for articles or news feeds we read today? And how do we pay or more importantly, reward the publishers in this industry? This question not only shapes the complexity of the media industry in the software world but most B2C industries, and the current digital economy. So when we talk about the fiercest competitors at the PwC Experience Center, we refer to the opportunities for emerging players and incumbents to not only challenge each other but also collaborate on their approach within the industry. 

To help set the scene and drive our discussion, I have with me Tokunbo Afikunyomi, the Editor-In-Chief at Stears Business, and Vwoke Ighure, the Director of Strategy and Innovation at Business Bay. Gentlemen, welcome.

Tokunbo Afikunyomi: Thank you for having me. 

Vwoke Ighure: Hi Ada, thank you for having me.

Host: Thank you for coming. Okay, so I'm going to start with Vwoke Business Day has been around for 35 years and counting. 

Vwoke Ighure: 20 years actually.

Host: Oh is it 20? Okay, my bad. We shouldn't beat things for you guys then. 

Vwoke Ighure: Thank you.

Host: But one advantage that existed for medium businesses such as yours was mass production and distribution. Then creative destruction kicked in. The internet replaced the distribution advantages of dominant storefronts, and of course, the PCs made it easier to produce and consume content. At what point did Business Day realise they needed to make changes to remain competitive? What were your early failures or successes in the first response to these changes?

Vwoke Ighure: Okay, thank you very much Ada for having me on the podcast.

Host: Thank you. 

Vwoke Ighure: You asked a very interesting question when you're asking that when did Business Day discover, you know, the whole disruption. So I think we started to make changes in about 2012. 

Host: Okay.

Vwoke Ighure:  Because by then, the print run for most new supply houses had started to decline. In the 80s, you had maybe 500,000 copies of newspapers distributed in Nigeria. But as time went on, about 2000, I think that was when we introduced GSM, technology had just started coming up. It was still very innocent in Nigeria. And then that's when things started to change. Everything started going mobile. So about 2012, which was about 11 years after the introduction of GSM, we found out what people were looking for—we're starting to consume content on other platforms. Obviously, we’d need to change the business model. So we went on and partnered with one of the biggest GSM providers in Nigeria and introduced a product called Mobile Newspaper Service. And within three years, we had gotten over 1.4 million mobile newspaper subscribers. And then we said to ourselves in 2014: now well, looks like that's the way to go. And then we started considering the concept of digital subscription. And to do that, we have to obviously tweak the business model. And when you tweak your business model means that you have to now start walking backwards. So there's talent, there's technology and resources. And so we started to make that move in about 2014. But I think we got serious about it in 2016, when we invited the Boston Consulting Group, just to come to do some work with us and help us revamp. Yes, revamp our strategy. And that's when we now decided to carve out a digital services business, which I headed at that time. That was the beginning of the journey. The idea was to start the work of experimenting and so we introduced registration, so you could register before consuming content. We just wanted to test it. And I remember, in five days, I think we had over 10,000 people register. They were not going to be charged. So we just said to ourselves: 'Okay, so you people are serious enough to register, then they might want to pay.'

Host: You adopted like a freemium. 

Vwoke Ighure: But we were wrong. Because I feel like people still believe that content should be free; they tell you that content is everywhere. But at Business Day, we try to tell you that look, our content is niche and we believe that good journalism should be paid for.

Host: So what happened to your other distribution channels, so your distribution channels that are more big bricks and mortar based?

Vwoke Ighure: I don't think it was really about the distribution channels, they are still there. It was more about consumer behaviour; that was what inspired the change in the business model. So the distribution channels are still there but of course, we have to switch…

Host: …to adapt.

Vwoke Ighure: …to adapting to the new normal. 

Host: Which makes sense. I mean, that's the way to go. So Tokunbo beyond the changes I mentioned, what other societal and technological changes (6:00) of a business like Stears?

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Well, I think the internet, 100%. That is the main driver that moved media businesses from print to using just a web-based platform. And so for a business like Stears, the print was not even from the time we started up, around 2014, the print was not even like a consideration because the internet allows us to reach the same number of people without that physical copy. So that's definitely the first shift. In terms of what Vwoke was talking about regarding moving to subscription and, you know, demanding or requiring people to pay for content; a few things happened in the media sector that made that shift. So we saw the likes of social media; Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, and businesses took it upon themselves or decided that a better way to reach their audience was via advertising on these sites. They didn't need media companies to do that advertising for them. And so that woke the media sector up in thinking: okay, we need to find other revenue streams, and not just revenue, ad-based revenue. Another thing that happened on the consumer side, that is still happening on the consumer side, is the demand for better quality information— that is, quality content. Reuters Institute for journalism does a report every year. And what they're finding is that people are seeing that the media industry is good at reporting, and letting them know what is happening. They're not very good at explaining what is happening. So that is the space that Stears has now tapped into. So that requirement, that demand, for explaining what is happening in the economy is the gap that Stears came into back in 2014. Enough people are telling you ‘what's happening in the world?’ Well, how many people are explaining what is going on, and how that actually affects you, at an individual level? And so it is that requirement for better quality content that has also forced businesses to increase the talent of the journalists, and that costs money. So trying to get the reader to pay for the content covers that cost.

Host: Would you say you guys are targeting different customers or the same customers? I will use an example close to home. My father likes to flip through papers, he enjoys that whole ceremony of receiving his paid newspaper, but at the same time, I mean he’s 80, he's actually digitally savvy. But he says that there's a difference when it comes to seeing print on paper as opposed to a tab. What would your response be? Are we targeting everybody? Or are we targeting a particular demographic?

Vwoke Ighure: I mean, of course. For us, I think it's a bit different because you know, so there's a print side, which obviously would appeal to people like your dad. But of course, over the years, we've seen that there's been a shift, right? If you look at the demography, people are becoming more technologically savvy, of course, you have more digital natives. And those guys prefer to consume their content online. As I said earlier, the behaviour has changed and that is what has instigated the change in the business model. Now, the way we see it, to survive in today's media landscape because we believe that is the intersection between media and technology— in fact, globally, we're increasingly beginning to see more media companies become technology companies because of what is required to actually run those platforms. 

So there are three major things that we believe publishers should master. First, the audience; you need to understand who your audience is. You need to understand how they like to consume their content. Do they like to read newsletters in the morning? Do they like to listen to podcasts such as this when they go on their morning runs because everyone is trying to keep fit these days? So what we try to do is understand them, we try to create products and content that actually meet them at every point. The second thing you need to understand is diversification. Which is what Tokunbo had talked about. For you to survive in the media landscape today, you need to diversify. You need to explore other ways even in the area of advertising. These days, advertisers look out for things they never used to look out for before they could do a piece of adverts in the paper. And you probably just do not know how many people saw that advert. We are starting to see them ask questions, they are asking for reports, they want to understand who's looking at the adverts. And the fact today, it's not just about the clicks, right, that advertisers look at, rather than look at the clocks. How much time do people spend reading your content? So that's why, as he said, these days, you find out that content has become king and you have to dedicate a lot of resources to developing your resources. And then finally, you now need to look at your business models. What do we even see now that's happening that a lot of media companies globally are now adopting about 14 different business models? And what research shows is that for you to remain viable as a media company, or a publisher you have to have at least deployed four of those business models.

Host: I mean, we talk about incentives. And the question would be how do you incentivise your consumers and your journalists? So maybe from a consumer perspective, what would be your response to the growing expectation that content should be free? I know that Vwoke has talked about it. But what's your perspective? Tokunbo?

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Yeah, I think it very much, as I mentioned, depends on the type of content. Yes, it might not seem logical, or it might be hard to incentivise someone to pay for breaking news that they will otherwise get on Twitter or any of these other platforms. But when you take the content to another level in terms of okay, inflation is now 12%. What does that mean? What does that mean for you? What does that mean for the wider economy? I think something interesting happened during the last recession, I think people are now starting to realise that: ‘Okay, this oil prices thing I keep hearing about, this inflation thing I keep hearing about, it's having an impact on me. Can someone explain that to me, so I can make better business decisions, I can make better personal decisions and saving decisions? So that information is very important. And so that is the level of quality of content that is worth paying for. One example I've heard of recently, in terms of paying for content or not paying for content is Big Brother or any of those shows that involve people voting for rights. You get your DSTV or your GOTV or any platform you're watching that content on. But to go an extra level, to vote for an individual to stay in the house, you need to pay an extra, I don't know what it is 100 Naira to keep that person in the house. And that is you going an extra level to pay for an extra level of quality because you like that particular person. That next level requires that extra payment. I see the same in the media industry, that next level, quality information, helping me understand the dots around me, understand the economy around me, that is what I think is worth paying for.

Vwoke Ighure: We believe that anything that generates value must generate revenue. Yeah. And then when you talk about incentives for the readers, we operate a trifecta model which we fondly called content plus community is equal to commerce. So what we tried to do is ensure that we generate quality content, we dedicate a lot of investments in trying to ensure that the content is right. And as he had mentioned earlier, we also try to personalise the content. These days we're trying to get our people to write stories and content that matters, things that resonate with people. How does inflation at 12.4% impact the …(13:46)? What does it mean for me? When we had the border closures—obviously, the price of rice went up—how does that impact me? And that's what the contents are. 

For communities, we try to create communities, whether online or offline. We try to do that with our conferences, our events, we have SME master classes, you know, all of that just trying to create communities. And then what we now try to do is to harvest those communities to become revenue-generating platforms.

Host: On the path of production, journalists today can either create direct blogs or produce content on standard social media platforms. As a result of that, we now have fake news. What are your views? And how do you guys handle or how do your organisations handle fake news?

Vwoke Ighure: I mean, when we talk about fake news, that affects the media industry globally. We believe that of course, social media platforms obviously is one of them, and then as was mentioned in the question, bloggers. Those platforms will be enablers as well as distractions, so we can create a distraction because the truth of it is a lot of consumers are looking for trustworthy platforms. And so the more publishers dedicate time to ensure that their content is credible, the more they can make a case for the paid subscription. Because the truth is, as more people continue to recognize fake news, they keep looking for a trustworthy source. And that can drive people towards paying for content that is trusted and content that they feel is worth paying for.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: I think fake news is a big issue in Nigeria. And in fact, in Africa and the world. Stears sees a massive information gap in Africa. And that is one, the lack of information, and two, misinformation. You get that via different means. Social media has made it easy for anyone to say something and made it easier for that information to travel, be it true or not. And even with established media houses, you still get misinformation because there is this pressure to put things out quickly. The example I always use is how sometimes media publications would get a governor's name wrong, for example. And because of the speed, you know, the next media platform, copy and paste that same wrong name. And before he knows it’s the wrong governor that did a particular thing. Not only is there a lack of information, but that miscommunication issue is very important. And as he said, that is one of the drivers towards: ‘Okay, as a consumer I need to stop. Where am I actually getting my information from?’ 

And that is why it's very important to build a brand, a brand that consumers can trust. That is also what incentivises journalists to, you know, want to come and work with you. It’s because of that brand. Buying into that brand from the worker side, the journalists’ side, and more importantly, the consumer side. A brand that they can trust is something that is extremely valued. And that is, again, what Stears is all about-solving that lack of trust in the media. It's a worldwide issue, but especially in Nigeria, because of the issue with fake news. That's why at Stears, we're very big on using data. We're very big on using numbers, to evidence-based anything we see.

Host: Across the board, I think across various platforms, there seems to be a shift from eyeballing to wanting to listen out for news, or maybe audiobooks. A lot of people seem to be tilting towards the ears as opposed to the eyes. Do you expect a change in your business model? I don't know if you've carried out any survey, in terms of consumer preference.

Vwoke Ighure: So according to a recent study by WAN-IFRA, which is a global body that monitors newspapers and the media landscape, more people are starting to consume content using videos. Even in Nigeria, you have a lot of people who have Netflix subscriptions. So if it's not Netflix, it is Spotify. But between audio and video, at the moment, video is still pretty much the preferred option. And what you find globally is that lots of media houses now have brands studios in-house. What they do is they create studios and they help brands tell their stories, not just in typical adverts.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: I think the world—if you look at the media space, the world is moving towards adding listening as part of the media's ammunition. If you go on FT or Bloomberg, article websites these days, I think I noticed in the last couple of months, there's also an option to play the article-to listen to it as opposed to reading it. And I think human beings are different. Some people prefer to listen to learn. And some people prefer to watch, they would write it down. So I think it’s catering to different customers. And I think the big thing in terms of the potential of podcasts or audio in Nigeria, very much depends on the technology. When I listened to this article, was it free-flowing? Does this sound like Siri, does it sound like a robot dictating your orders or does it sound like a normal human being reading this article with the same level of flow that the writer was intending? And on the other side as well, relating to technology is data. So in Nigeria, do people have enough data to listen to stuff for that long as opposed to reading it? So I think technology is a very big determinant regarding listening to articles as opposed to reading them.

Host: Let's quickly talk about the future of media. What does that look like to both Business Day and Stears business? I know you've mentioned videos being one of the preferred channels. What does video first consumption mean to the average man out there?

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: So the future of media has been spoken about throughout the show. I think it is one that very much looks at a more subscription-based model, one where media houses are focused on the quality of content and consumers as well are looking for those brands that they trust and educate themselves to understand what's happening around them. So I think in terms of business models, I think we're moving towards a more subscription-based model in terms of media houses. And as he mentioned, as well, doing more on the community side, doing stuff like events and the like. In terms of the type of content, I think media houses are going to experiment. So you see more in terms of podcasts, and videos— that will be experimented with. It’s too early to say what will actually kick off in Nigeria. But it seems that at least globally, podcasts seem to be the next thing in terms of the future of media. For videos, because we already have broadcasting, it's difficult to see how the likes of Stears and Business Day really push on that as much as the likes of NTA would. But there is a demand online to consume content in that way. So I think it will be added to the ammunition. In terms of ‘how far would it go?’, it’s too early to say.

Vwoke Ighure: For us at Business Day, the future of media for us would be how publishers can master those three monetization strategies that I mentioned. So i.e. consumer behaviour. Just understanding the consumer data around the consumer, the reader is becoming very important for advertisers. And publishers can only make progress if they have a very sustainable digital revenue that at least accommodates that or ensures that you have at least 40% of paid-reader revenue. That's when you can say that you are actually on the right track. And then another thing we believe is the future of media would be the ability of publishers to diversify their income streams. As I mentioned earlier, I talked about brand studios, he talked about podcasts. The truth about it is that right now advertisers are looking for different platforms to be able to advertise their products. So if it is podcasts or videos, the publisher has to position himself in such a way that he can provide platforms for the advertisers to express themselves. And as I said before, finally, how well are they able to develop very flexible business models? Because increasingly, we are beginning to see publishers do other things, they’re becoming retailers. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, will sell ‘why’. The Financial Times have something they call ‘how to spend it’, which probably has a listing of different luxury products. I think in 2017, alone, they made about 5.4 million pounds from 'How to Spend It’ alone. So the future of media relies on how publishers can explore the three business models. 

What houses are doing is introducing what they call partnerships. So what you find is that platforms like Facebook, like Google, what they do is— I think Google has what they call Google News. So what they try to do is put their news on those platforms and try to direct the users from the Google platform to their sites as a way of driving traffic. You also have other platforms where you read the content. You even have Apple news. So what they try to do is to partner with Apple, put their content on there to access their own audience so that they popularise whatever it is they’re doing. So instead of competing with the likes of Apple, Facebook, Google, we just partner with them. Because the truth is, those guys consumers— again, back to the issue of carefully curated content, those guys have people who want content that is trustworthy. Yeah. So for now, that's the way to deal with them.

Host: Tokunbo I don't know if you want to add that. 

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Yeah, I think aggregators, you know, Google News, Apple news are a very big part of the media sector now. That's an increasing part of the way people are receiving content. And I think when you're talking about Google and Facebook being competitors, that is only relevant or is very relevant when you're thinking in the revenue space or the ad-revenue space rather. Advertisers would think to themselves, I'm better off advertising this thing on Google and Facebook, I'm going to reach the audience I want to than I would on a media publishing site. But then when you start to move towards a subscription model, you don't actually care about that anymore. You have your community of users and that is all you care about-making content for your users. You're not bothered about advertising. You’re not bothered about what Facebook is doing because Facebook is not giving that kind of content you're creating. So that is why I guess throughout this conversation the theme has been that the subscription-based model is the future of media. 

Another thing you're doing is creating a community of engaged, insightful readers and this space is also still very valuable to advertisers. So even if you still make money off subscription and revenue ads, what you have is still special relative to what a mass Facebook could have.

Vwoke Ighure: Because we’re trying to reach an audience. So right now you're faced with a situation where the aggregator now says, okay, look, it looks like, I have a lot of followers. Why don't I just forget about these people and create my capacity? So they create their newsrooms, create their content, and then exploit their communities for getting the other guys that they would have been getting content from before. As Tokunbo had mentioned before, really, for you to play in publishing these days, you have to ensure that you have the right technology for you to fully maximise the opportunities that lie in creating your community. Otherwise, you stand the risk of depending on other platforms.

Host: Okay, we’ve talked a little about the growing personalised consumption within a social media platform. Is BusinessDay currently providing any form of personalised consumption of content? 

Vwoke Ighure: So yes, we are. As I said earlier, advertising which is pretty much still—as far as Nigeria is concerned— is still the major revenue generator for most publishers. What we try to do is ensure that we create personalised content, it's moved from clicks to clocks. Advertisers are not just asking about clicks. What they care about right now is clocks-how long are people spending within your story? We talked about investigative reporting. The only reason I can sit here and confidently say that what most readers want right now is investigative journalism, is content that has been carefully curated, is because we watch the numbers, some data shows that people want this type of content. And that's how we're able to make investments in ensuring that our technology can curate personalised content for the reader while also providing data for the advertisers.

Host: I like what you've mentioned about clicks and clocks. Can you expand a little bit? I understand Click. It’s Clock.

Vwoke Ighure: Okay, when we just started the digital journey, you had advertisers talk about page views. How many people are clicking on the adverts? How many people are clicking on the story? But it’s moved from that now. Somebody can click and spend two/three seconds and the person has moved on, right? You don't know anything about the person? You don't know what the person likes. But when you talk about clocks; clocks is how much time does the reader spend reading the story? Or how long do they spend on your site? That way, you'll be able to gauge, one, how to create a message within a particular time and how best to engage with the readers.

Host: Tokunbo, how does your team use artificial intelligence and analytics to drive customer engagement or ad effectiveness?

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Yeah, so I think Analytics is a huge part of any media publishing house, you will need to be hyper-focused on the user of the content, your customer. And so using data and analysing that data to figure out what it is consumers want, what time they want it, where they want it, it’s extremely important. So we are constantly looking at numbers, we have dashboards that we're always looking at, different tools that we're using to make sure that we're learning more about our customers. And also deciding and making calls in terms of; you have an ad company on one side, you have a customer on the other side, how best can we match the two. Another space where AI and analytics are good is finding other consumers that are similar to the ones you already have. Using data to figure out who your consumers are and where I can find a similar type of person to come and read my content. 

Vwoke Ighure: And I also want to add that increasingly, what we are starting to see is that publishers are starting to introduce the use of chatbots. So you've come to the site, you can actually subscribe, ask questions, and then you always get a response. I mean, putting a Paywall means that you need to have 24-hour service. We have a call centre that responds to subscribers when they have issues, but they're not 24-hour. So we try to use AI to cover up that.

Host: It's been said that the workforce of the future is a combination of humans and— I'm not sure what the ratio would be in the next five, and the next five years.

Vwoke Ighure: I mean, when you talk about the workforce of the future, what we, I mean—in the 80s and 90s, my dad is a retired journalist, so I can tell you that you know, then they would look out for people who studied Mass Comm. Once you study Mass Comm, everybody knows you’re going to end up in a newspaper house or a radio house. But the way it is now the workforce in publishing is changing. So you could walk into a media house and find out that there are developers there, there’s a data analyst there. In Business Day, there is a role we call the Head of Audience Engagement. That's someone who just sits down, looks at data and tries to ensure that the content is fit for consumption. Again, this whole intersection between media and technology costs a huge disruption for publishing.

Host: You know, it sort of makes sense. I think it allows everybody to play in whatever space they have a passion for. Okay, so we always have three questions, standard questions that we ask all guests to provide their perspective on. So the first one is, what is the last prediction you got wrong? Doesn't have to be media focused.

Vwoke Ighure: I think the last prediction I got wrong—I hope they don't arrest me for this—was that there was going to be a change in government. I mean, everyone else had thought that there was going to be a change in government, given the economic indicators, which were not exactly favourable. At least, I know that every Nigerian, most Nigerians who are serious about business would have had issues with the way the economy was going.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Speaking to the theme of elections. At Stears, I don't know if many people know—but Stears actually has two groups. There is Stears Business and there is Stears Data. Stears Data does a lot of work in advisory and building platforms to also solve that information gap. In the last election, both those teams came together to build an election centre. So basically, the platform where you could come and view live results of the election. And in terms of predicting, we thought, okay, this is like, it's more predictable though on the side and maybe we will get a few views. Very very wrong predictions there. Like, I think like, in the space of a week we had like 7 million views, which is more than what Stears Business was doing for the whole year. So sticking to elections, it’s incredible how much interest there is in Nigeria, in that space, figuring out who's going to win, who's not going to win, or just politics in general. 

Host: Okay, what's one view you seem to find very few people agree on? Vwoke.

Vwoke Ighure: That content should be paid for. As I was saying earlier, a lot of people don't feel like they should pay for content. I mean, they get content from anywhere, which makes them stand the risk of fake news, getting fake news. We always try to ensure that we emphasise the value of taking on a Business Day subscription. Because it's really funny how people in Nigeria just feel like, you know, they can get content anywhere, it's everywhere, social media, it's all over the place. But what we try to do is ensure that we emphasise the importance of taking a subscription and paying for journalism. As I said before, we believe that good journalism should be paid for.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: I guess I'd say that Nigeria is a big country. In many ways. Nigeria is still very small. When you think of it from our industry, media industry, or even retail. When businesses or companies want to come to Nigeria and say they want to sell to Nigeria, what they find is that the market isn't as big as they thought. And a lot of that is driven by the amount of poverty in the country. There are around 100 million Nigerians that live under $2 a day. And so the economy is not generating anything, the country is still a very small country when you think about it from the perspective of active agents in the industry. The FT has like 1 million subscribers, right? Are there 1 million Nigerians who would pay for content? The CEO of, I think, Evernote once said that to get 1 million subscribers, you need 1 billion people to want the content to begin with. That space doesn't exist in Nigeria. The economists, I think just don't have that many subscribers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole and as a result, the content they provide for Africa is of lower quality than what they normally produce on say Brexit or something that their subscribers are actually paying for. So I genuinely think that Nigeria is still quite small and there’s a lot of room to still grow.

Host: Our previous interviewee Goke Olubusi, the CEO of Helium health has a question for you. You may have addressed this during the conversation. But let's be more specific here. His question is, what about Nigeria would you like to change that you think would transform the industry you work in?

Vwoke Ighure: Well, I think, speaking to technology, would be data costs. I feel like if data was made cheaper, publishers would be able to express their content in various formats. So if it's video or podcasts, people will be able to consume content in whatever format and not worry about the costs. And that way, they're able to even experience scale, in terms of their technology and even in terms of revenues, and you'll be able to experiment with different forms.

Host: To add to that, have you, I mean, the media, have you guys thought about partnering with the data providers?

Vwoke Ighure: As I said earlier, when we partnered in 2014 which was what showed us the opportunity; when we partnered with the mobile newspaper service, as I said, within six months, we had grown to 1.4 million subscribers. That's way light-year ahead of the Financial Times even meeting 1 million subscribers on a digital platform. Well, of course, they will not count that because that was using a mobile service provider as a partner. So of course the opportunities for scale, if we were to partner with other sectors.

Host: Same question to you Tokunbo.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: The thing I would change about Nigeria is definitely education. I think we have too many uneducated Nigerians. And when you educate people, they then can engage in these conversations that we're having in the media industry. There is no civic engagement in Nigeria, I mean, it exists, but we can do, we can do more. And we just need to educate, you know, our citizens, to give them the ability to engage with the media. And so that's definitely the thing that I would change.

Host: Engagement leads to empowerment.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Of course. 

Host: Okay, so to conclude, we always say that disruption is interrelated. What's one perspective you'd like to get from our next interview? By the way, we don't know who our next interviewee is. So it's free flow.

Tokunbo Afikuyomi: Will they still be doing their job in 30 years? Or would they be replaced?

Host: Interesting. We'll find out in the next podcast.

Vwoke Ighure: I think that's a very good question to ask. Will they still be relevant in 30 years?

Host: Thank you, guys.