Former Utusan Malaysia editor-in-chief Johan Jaafar has been named as the new chairperson of the country's leading media conglomerate Media Prima Sdn Bhd effective this Thursday.

He will be replacing Abdul Mutalib Mohamed Razak who resigned from the board today after completing his contract.

The announcement was made by the company through a statement to Bursa Malaysia.

johan jaafar johan jaaffar media prima group Johan, 56, is an experienced hand in managing media organisations, having previously helmed Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia from 1992 to 1998.

Closely associated to former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, Johan was dismissed from his post in Utusan following the unceremoniously sacking of Anwar from the government and Umno in 1998.

This former chairperson of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka presently has a popular weekly column in both New Straits Times and Berita Harian - both dailies under the Media Prima stable.

He is also the host of a debate programme in RTM1 called ‘Debat Perdana'.

His appointment to helm Media Prima was highly speculated by the industry people for some time now. He is expected to be the key personality to drive new Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's media agenda.

At Media Prima, he will be in charge with a wide range of media outlets, all of which are familiar and popular names.

The company has a total control over terrestrial television stations in the country with all TV3, NTV7, Channel 8 and TV9 under its banner.

The company also boasts radio stations such as FlyFm, HotFM and OneFM, apart from the daily newspapers under the New Straits Times group of companies.

And the media giant is gearing up for a "business-rich second half of the year", as it proclaimed today at its annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Hit by lower advertising spending

Media Prima's group managing director and chief executive officer, Abdul Rahman Ahmad said this will be driven by improvement in the domestic economy as well as increased advertising spending.

"We believe there has been a slowdown in terms of domestic growth as well as advertising spending because of the global financial climate.

"Our business is a fixed-cost business, so any decline in advertising revenue will have an impact on our bottomline," he was reported as saying by Bernama .

However, he said Media Prima remained optimistic on hope that the government economic stimulus packages will start having effects in the second half, thus enabling advertising spending to pick up as well.

He also revealed that almost 95 percent of Media Prima's revenue comes from advertising, adding that advertising revenue has declined due to the global financial crisis.

Media Prima's pre-tax profit for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2008 was higher at RM159.264 million compared to RM149.095 million in the previous year.

Revenue rose to RM781.29 million from RM691.339 million previously.

On the current financial year ending Dec 31, 2009, Abdul Rahman said Media Prima was still optimistic of remaining profitable with support from its wide array of media assets, covering television, radio and outdoor business.

He said that the three segments will continue to be the main driver for Media Prima's growth.

Currently, television was the biggest contributor with 70 percent of the group's net profit, while outdoor and radio were contributing 20 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Abdul Rahman also said that he hoped for their new media business to break even this year and start contributing in the next two years with more people spending online.

Media Prima's New Media, currently a loss-making division, is responsible for the fully revamped TV networks' Internet portals and a new lifestyle portal called "gua.com.my".