JAMAICAN MEDIA COMPANIES TAKING THEIR ONLINE TRAFFIC SERIOUSLY ?

Jamaica- IRIEFM: Their Business Model is paid subscription to their live streams which they started in 2001 in addition, banner ads and also google ads. Their monthly page views primarily from the Diaspora market in US,UK and Canada, are in the hundreds of thousands, so they should be making some money, enough to cover the cost of running the site or quite profitable who knows.

Jamaica Observer– Their primary source of making money online is top of the site banner ads. That’s it. In fact if you were to call about online advertising, you will easily get the impression that there are not serious about their website and it making money as say The Jamaica Gleaner. When you call the Advertising Department you are forwarded to the IT Department to speak to the “IT guys” to get rates. Helloo!!! Then again, their site design has not changed since 2001.

Jamaica Gleaner- Well aesthetics is not a priority of this daily newspaper site. Ad sales however are. The Gleaner’s is a very strong brand in the Jamaican market at home and also globally with the Jamaican Diaspora market in US, UK and Canada – primarily from being the oldest daily newspaper. It also commands a seemingly unshakeable perception that once it’s in the Gleaner, it gets read and seen.The site is FULL of ads. It’s mixed bag of banner ads, google ads, local advertiser button ads and with page views in the high hundreds of thousands their google ads cheque alone should be an interesting site.

RadioJamaica– This radio station is as old as the Jamaica Gleaner, it’s one of the country’s first. RJR has as a subscription model in place via JumpTV for its live stream of radio and television from its sister company TelevisionJamaica (TVJ). It also has Google, Clicksor ads in addition to banner and button ads from local advertisers.

CVMT TV.Currently they are redesigning their site, but what’s there is an interface for JUMPTV for which they have a distribution deal. Jumptv sell their live and archived television programmes via a subscription model to the Jamaican Diaspora in US,UK and Canada for US$6.95 a month. Before that, the site was pretty much void of any ads, subscription models that could possible take advantage of traffic.

So of course I have a few questions:

1. How many of these Jamaica media houses gear themselves for seasonal traffic such as Hurricane, Elections,Christmas and other holidays?

2. How many have an advertising sales strategy for their web properties?

3. How many of these Jamaican media companies making money from their online properties and are profitable?