Questions that are food for thought.
1. Is the Jamaica Gleaner too big and important to fail?
2. Will the Government step in and inject public funds to “save” what many consider a national treasure.
3. Given market trends and developments those in the know say, what is currently been done to stop the bleeding is too little to late.

“Stephens-Hall said as much as the company would love it, advertisers have not come back to their pre-pandemic spending levels. She reported that revenues had a marginal increase of roughly $54 million or about one per cent for financial year ended March 2024. She said most segments showed improvements, with audio-visual showing an improvement of $55 million and the audio segment showing an increase of $44 million but that this was offset by a reduction in the print segment, which had a loss of $44 million.”

The Caribbean Media Crisis: Can Digital Transformation Save Regional News?

The Streaming giant acknowledges that advertising is on its way after warding off brand interruptions in shows for years, and is throwing out all of its old rules after losing customers for the first time in a decade, saying it will introduce an advertising-supported option and crack down on people sharing passwords.

“Losing customers
Netflix Inc. tumbled in pre-market trading after losing customers for the first time in a decade. If the declines hold, the streaming leader will see about $40 billion in market value wiped out overnight. The streaming giant lost 200,000 customers in the first quarter and projected it will shrink by another 2 million customers in the current second quarter. Netflix plans to create a lower-priced version of its service that has advertising and and will start to crack down on people sharing their passwords even before that. The extent of the crash in the share price for results that aren’t that bad shows just how much of Netflix’s value was locked in the future.” Bloomberg

 iCreate Limited

Tyrone Wilson, President & CEO

iCreate is a Creative Institute developed with the aim of filling the gap in skills training and development of creatives in the Caribbean and North America. As an important part of the creative eco-system, we provide students with a wide range of career opportunities in the Creative Economy, while being a key partner of the Advertising Industry, Film Production Companies, Animation and Gaming Companies, and Creative Outsourcing initiatives.

Edufocal 

Gordon Swaby, Chief Executive Officer

EduFocal is an online social learning community. The company is focused on using technology to enrich the learning experience outside of the classroom as well as to help ideate and innovate the way we move forward with technology in education. The idea to create EduFocal came to Gordon Swaby in 2010 and more than 2-million lines of coding later EduFocal Ltd was launched at The Jamaica Pegasus Hotel on March 15, 2012. Of EduFocal, Swaby says it is an “intuitive product that isn’t only cool and fun to use but also boosts students comprehension and retention skills. EduFocal’s mission is to become the premiere social learning platform in the Caribbean”.

Newly Listed iCreate Stock Price Jumps 30% On First Day Of Trading

Tyrone Wilson, President & CEO

iCreate Limited (ICREATE) listed it shares on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) Junior Market on February 25, 2019. This increased the number of companies listed to 38 which represents 40 securities listed on the Junior Market.

ICREATE raised $70 million and added 819 new shareholders to their register. Also with this listing, the market capitalization of the Junior Market increased from $136.96 billion as at Friday, February 22 to $137.2 billion. This compares to the first listing where the market capitalization stood at $503 million. The combined market capitalization for all markets now stand at $1.55 trillion.

Edufocal is the 44th company listed on the JSE Junior Market and the 98th company (143 securities) on the JSE.

Gordon Swaby, Chief Executive Officer

EduFocal’s prospectus was published on February 23, 2022, inviting subscription for 129,689,219 ordinary shares at a price of $1.00 per share. The Offer opened on March 3, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. and closed a minute later due to oversubscription of approximately 230%. The Company raised over $428.42 million from the offer; however, the value of the offer was for $129.69 million The Company now has a total of 2,415 shareholders and will begin trading under the symbol LEARN at a price of $1:00.

Edufocal is the 44th company listed on the JSE Junior Market and the 98th company (143 securities) on the JSE. EduFocal’s prospectus was published on February 23, 2022, inviting subscription for 129,689,219 ordinary shares at a price of $1.00 per share. The Offer opened on March 3, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. and closed a minute later due to oversubscription of approximately 230%. The Company raised over $428.42 million from the offer; however, the value of the offer was for $129.69 million The Company now has a total of 2,415 shareholders and will begin trading under the symbol LEARN at a price of $1:00.