DUSHANBE, January 31, Asia-Plus  -- Mirsaid Sultonov, lecturer at Russian-Tajik Slavonic University has prepared research on factors of costs of producing newspapers in Tajikistan.  

According to Mr. Michael Unland, Media Officer at the OSCE Center in Dushanbe, the research is part of the OSCE-supported project to study the economic difficulties faced by Tajikistan''s print media.   

The research, in particular, considers technical, economic and organizational problems affecting profitability of Tajikistan’s newspapers. 

The study identifies the high production costs and newspapers'' inability to attract enough advertising as a main reason for their lack of profitability, as the costs cannot be recouped by sales alone. Many state print media rely on subsidies and state-supported subscription campaigns.

Mr. Unland also noted that the OSCE Center’s Media Program plans to organize a roundtable meeting on the profitability problems facing Tajikistan’s newspaper in the near future.       

We will recall that the research was presented at a press conference at the OSCE Center in Dushanbe on December 19, 2007.  During the press conference it was noted that most newspapers in Tajikistan are not profitable, according to new research presented today at a news conference at the OSCE Centre in Dushanbe.

Speaking to journalists at a press conference, Mirsaid Sultonov said that just a handful of the country''s main newspapers are profitable, while the rest are struggling.  "Most Tajik newspaper managers are journalists by profession, but they lack managerial skills. Therefore many do not take advertisements seriously and have poor administrative management," he said.