Kenya Media Council Hails Summit's Digital Transformation Focus
With around 7 billion digital consumers globally, Omwoyo said advertisers can precisely target specific audiences.
NAIROBI, Kenya— The head of the Kenya Media Council welcomed attendees to Day 2 of the 2024 AllAfrica Media Leaders' Summit on Thursday, hailing the gathering as an opportunity to chart the future of digital media and content development across the continent, writes Winston Mwale.
"We live in a time when the digital world has really affected the way we work in traditional media," said David Omwoyo, the council's CEO, in his opening remarks.
"News reports on radio, TV and print are being disrupted by the digital realm."
Omwoyo noted that while digital transformation poses challenges, it has also unlocked new opportunities to reach wider audiences through technologies like machine translation across multiple languages.
With around 7 billion digital consumers globally, he said advertisers can precisely target specific audiences.
This requires media companies to innovate, collaborate and re-engineer business models to adapt.
"The challenge is for us to build it ourselves, not just buy technologies or teams, but to partner in sharing ideas, technologies, networks and going far together," Omwoyo told the summit of over 300 African media leaders.
He criticized the "silo mentality" at some outlets, urging more cross-industry collaboration to cut costs and boost quality journalism across digital platforms.
The three-day Nairobi summit, themed "Re-engineering African Media in Times of Critical Transformation," has convened media owners, government officials, tech leaders and others to examine the future of news distribution and content amid the digital age, misinformation challenges, and the need for new governance standards and sustainable business models.
The summit aims to chart a course for African media to adapt and thrive in the digital era while bolstering governance, economic development and social progress through reliable information flow across the continent.