Every year, print newspapers alone spend about... 388 billion VND of the budget.

That was the information at the Conference to disseminate the project on planning for development and management of the national press until 2025. This also demonstrates the need to re-plan the press system.

In the report on the basic contents of the national press development and management planning project until 2025, it also pointed out that over the past 10 years, the number of printed newspapers has increased rapidly, from 486 press agencies and magazines with 606 publications in 2001, to now (as of December 2014), the whole country has 845 press agencies with 1,118 publications, including 199 printed press agencies (86 central newspapers, 113 local newspapers) and 646 magazines (514 central magazines and 132 local magazines).

Thus, magazines account for 76%, newspapers account for 24%, specifically: the press sector directly under the Central Government has 4 newspapers and 21 magazines; the press sector of mass organizations has 35 central mass organization newspapers, 23 local mass organization newspapers, 233 central mass organization magazines and 103 local mass organization magazines. Every year, the number of newspapers published in our country is about more than 650 million copies, an average of more than 7.22 copies/person/year.

Overview of the conference to disseminate the project on planning for national press development and management until 2025 (Photo: Hong Chuyen)

Currently, out of 845 print media agencies, there are approximately 300 that can balance their own revenues and expenditures. In fact, the model of a press agency with many press publications and expanding the form of revenue-generating activities in accordance with legal regulations beyond newspaper sales to support press activities is a trend being implemented by a number of press agencies.

In particular, every year, regular expenditure from the state budget for print media agencies is about 388 billion VND (of which the central budget is about 153 billion VND, the local budget is about 235 billion VND). This expenditure does not include development investment expenditure, support expenditure according to target programs, only publishing newspapers for remote areas, ethnic minority areas... Currently, out of 845 print media agencies, there are about 300 press agencies that can balance their own revenue and expenditure.

Currently, basically, newspapers of ministries, branches and mass organizations are self-accounting. The magazine block of state research institutes is being compensated for losses. Some large press agencies have high revenue, contributing a lot to the budget such as: Tuoi Tre newspaper of Ho Chi Minh City (paying the budget about 200 billion), Thanh Nien newspaper (paying the budget about more than 100 billion), and newspapers of the Public Security sector. In the context of economic decline, the number of publications and advertisements has decreased significantly, affecting the press economy.

The report also pointed out limitations such as the print press system can be said to be large in quantity but the quality is not commensurate, the overlapping situation in content, purpose, audience and service principles is still large and has not been effectively overcome. As many people commented, "our press is large but not strong". This requires planning to avoid overlapping and waste of State resources.

In addition, the issue of organizations and individuals linking with press agencies to participate in the production of publications, channels, and programs, especially in the fields of entertainment, commerce, etc., is a common trend in the world. In our country, this activity has tended to develop rapidly in the past few years. It is worth noting that this activity not only takes place in press agencies of professional associations or small social-professional associations, but also in some press agencies of some ministries and branches. However, due to the lax management of some press management agencies for the linking activities, it affects the quality of content.

Therefore, it is necessary to have policies and regulations to create conditions for press agencies to participate in joint activities to both fulfill their information functions well, improve content quality, and improve their ability to balance their revenues and expenditures, so that by 2020, press agencies can basically be financially autonomous.

According to Infonet