Journalist Cliff Hughes’ 10-year dream of creating a news and current affairs network that produces radio and television programmes for local and overseas markets has attracted heavy investment from some of Jamaica’s big business people, Hughes has confirmed.

“The investment amounts to thousands of millions of dollars,” Hughes told the Observer last week while overseeing construction of his Nationwide News Network (NNN) centre at 27 Mannings Hill Road in Kingston.

He declined to give the specific figure, but displayed the renovation of the entire top floor of the three-storey building, as well as two offices a floor below, and spoke of the state-of-the-art technology being bought to outfit the centre which will, on January 31, start broadcasting its flagship programme, Nationwide@5 on a new station.

At the weekend, Observer sources said the new station was KOOL-FM 97, the radio station run by the Civil Aviation Authority. “An announcement should be made today that airtime has been sold to NNN,” a government source said.

Last week, Hughes said that Nationwide@5 would be expanded from three to four hours and would be aired Sunday to Friday.

“What Nationwide has given birth to is a dedicated all-news, current affairs, business and sports content centre that will produce and present several programmes for radio and television in Jamaica, the Caribbean and the wider world,” Hughes said.

Last August, Hughes had declined to renew his contract to air Nationwide on Power 106 after it expired on January 7 this year, having made an unsuccessful attempt at negotiating a deal that would have been in line with his new strategic outlook for the programme.

Hughes’ plan is to leverage the market penetration of the popular radio show – which last year grossed about $60 million – by rolling out more programmes to generate more revenue, utilise his human resources more efficiently and better spread his overheads.

Under this plan, he has been exploring the possibility of local and overseas syndication and is already in discussions with CPN-TV out of the New York Tri-state area to take NNN’s radio and TV programmes.

Hughes said CBC-TV in Barbados is now airing Impact with Cliff Hughes, his television programme which airs on CVM-TV on Sunday.

A1 Communications, the firm owned and used by Hughes to produce Nationwide and Impact, is the major stakeholder in NNN with 30 per cent.

Captain Horace Burrell, owner of The Captain’s Bakery and a Business Observer Business Leader nominee in 2002, has the second largest stake – 20 per cent. Other investors, some of whom Hughes opted not to name now, are Aldo Smith of AMK Communications, Lennie Gordon, and Fayval Williams who did risk management at Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB) before going to the Financial Services Commission as a senior adviser.

Williams, who now heads NNN’s Audit and Finance Committee, told the Observer that she was at JMMB when Hughes and Smith went to that firm with the idea and saw the potential it held.

“I see a market beyond Jamaica for what we are doing here,” she said in response to the fact that Nationwide@5 will be competing with three other radio programmes for audience and advertising during the same time slot daily. “Yes, it’s crowded here, but that’s not our focus,” Williams added.

The investment decision was easy for Burrell, who said he was very impressed with Nationwide’s success and had wanted to diversify his holdings, having been inspired by local businessmen Karl Hendrickson and Gordon “Butch” Stewart.

Hendrickson has investments in the hotel and baking industries, while Stewart owns and operates hotels throughout the Caribbean, an appliance sales and service firm, an office supplies firm, a motor vehicle sales and service company, and the Observer newspaper.

“The level of professionalism practised by Nationwide has made it the leading news and current affairs radio programme,” Burrell told the Observer last week. “The decision to be a part of that wasn’t very difficult. I firmly believe that this investment has huge potential.”

Hughes said NNN’s operational model will see it providing production infrastructure, sales and marketing support, as well as presentation and research skills for on-air talent and producers.

“So, you have a brilliant idea but you don’t have the marketing, sales, production and infrastructural support. You come here, we do all that for you, you get a percentage of the revenue generated by our sales and marketing people and you keep the intellectual property,” he explained.

To make all this happen, Hughes and his investors are setting up three studios – two for radio and the other for TV; an editing room, a research centre, a newsroom, and sales and marketing offices, all of which will interface on an automated system.

He’s also placing heavy emphasis on training and has given veteran broadcaster Erica Allen, already a Nationwide presenter, the job of coaching his presenters.

“We feel that training and how we sound on air are critical in ensuring our competitive advantage,” Hughes said.davidsonv@jamaicaobserver.com

He projects that the network, which now has 14 full-time professionals and 12 freelancers, will, in its first two years, employ up to 45 people.