Ahead of its third anniversary in December, Nigeria’s leading investigative online newspaper, PREMIUM TIMES, Tuesday in Lagos announced a bold partnership deal with foremost public relations company, the Quadrant Company.

The partnership will see the Quadrant company manage the brand support and marketing efforts of the multiple award winning newspaper, helping PREMIUM TIMES in its next mile vision towards elaborate commercial visibility and the strengthening of its platform.

Speaking at the press briefing, the managing director of PREMIUM TIMES, Dapo Olorunyomi, who spoke about the vision and mission of PREMIUM TIMES, it’s investigative vision, and its projections for the future, said it is time to rewrite the cliché that the Nigerian media is incapable of assuming new heights and market leadership in the corporate landscape of the nation’s economy.

“With due respect to its important social role as an audit organ for a functional democracy, the media is a business and must make its staff enormously happy, its customers greatly satisfied, and its shareholders always smiling when they read the balance sheets” said Olorunyomi who added that “those shackling social and economic conditions that abuse journalists and make it impossible to build a respectable profession are overdue for annulment.”

Drawing from the young history of the company, Mr. Olorunyomi remarked that: “We have become renowned for exceptional policy and sectoral reporting of the nation’s polity and economy, but this is no longer enough for us, and we believe it is no longer enough for millions of our readers,” explaining that the partnership with Quadrant Company will now launch PREMIUM TIMES into its second phase of operations where it will harvest the broad but hitherto muted value chain from its journalistic products.

He paid glowing tribute to the legacy of the late newspaper manager, Babatunde Jose, claiming that “all efforts to rebuild the current broken revenue profile of the Nigerian media must seek a humble return to the lessons embedded in the Babatunde Jose codes.”

“Mr Jose was the first genius of the revenue architecture of our media,” said the editor who expressed confidence in Quadrant’s “exceptional expertise evidenced by its track record and robust productive relationship” to give resonance to this new direction.

Also speaking, the managing director of Quadrant, Bolaji Okusaga, said he is proud to be allied with such a groundbreaking and innovative brand as PREMIUM TIMES, which he reiterated, is already a strong platform.

“Like the managing director (of PREMIUM TIMES) just hinted, resting on one’s oars is the fastest way to drown. As PREMIUM TIMES seeks deeper penetration in Nigeria and West Africa, The Quadrant company will assist in providing vertical integration across a number of platforms, providing more discerning media consumers,” he said.

PREMIUM TIMES, a multimedia publishing platform, founded in December 2011, is known for its ethical depth, incisive analyses and investigative stories as well as its dynamic and youthful newsroom.

In three years, the paper has led in the coverage of some of the most important stories in Nigeria and its reporters have won several local and international awards.