Stats Botswana reports declining newspaper sales

Baboki Kayawe | Friday July 28, 2017 15:58

“Sales started to decrease in 2011 until they reached P26 million in 2015,” says the report.  The report notes wide usage of computers, intranet, and internet among private newspaper employees during 2015.

Among the employees of private newspapers in 2015, males had more usage of computers, intranet and internet than their female counterparts.

As of December 2015, 75.4% of males used computers while 68.6% of females used computers; 60.6% of newspaper male employees used internet while 57.9% of female employees used the internet.

Males also had more access to the websites than did female employees, further says the report entitled Information Communication Telecommunications Statistics. With regards to public and private radio stations broadcasting trends, 2015 figures suggest that English and Setswana programmes were highly broadcast followed by general programmes.

“In the fourth quarter of 2015, 4,720 hours were used for broadcasting general programmes while 1,815 hours were used for broadcasting English programmes. Setswana programs followed with 1,686 broadcasting hours,” the report reads.

The least covered in terms of hours were instructional or special programming and religious programmes.

Subscriptions for fixed telephone lines decreased by 5.2 percent, from 169,236 in 2014 to 160,490 in 2015.

The study goes on to state that tele-density (the number of fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants) has been almost constant since 2002- it decreased from eight lines per 100 persons in 2014 to seven lines per 100 persons in 2015.