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by Gill Moodie (@grubstreetSA) I see a few positives for newspapers in the recent figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation of SA (ABC), out today, for the first quarter of this year – far more than for magazines.

After a reasonably good fourth quarter in 2013 – in which many papers did well on the back of their coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death and funeral – total daily circulation is up again (from 1 541 488 to 1 622 041 year on year) in the first quarter of this year plus many individual titles are showing growth from the last quarter of last year.

mg2014-03-07Some – such as the Daily Dispatch, Diamond Felds Advertiser, The Herald, Isolezwe, Sowetan, The Times, The Post, Soccer Laduma, City Press, the Saturday edition of Isolezwe, Saturday Dispatch and the Sunday Sun  – are even showing year-on-year (YoY) growth. Granted some of this growth is small but in today’s difficult world of across-the-board circulation slide even holding steady is something to applaud.

City Press and the Sunday Sun can be particularly pleased with their performances in this quarter because they have been battling falling sales for quite some time. (City Press was at 118 676 in Q1 2014 compared with 118 547 in Q1 2013 while the Sunday Sun was at 172 741 in Q1 2014 compared with 169 412 in Q1 2013. Let’s hope both have turned a corner here and can start to grow in a sustained fashion.

We have certainly had lots of big news events in this first quarter of the year – Oscar Pistorius, the Public Protector’s final report on Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home and the build up to the national election – so many papers would have benefited from that.

Equally, however, many papers could not compete with social media, radio and TV in being first with the news when it came to Pistorius and Nkandla so what gives here?

I think we are seeing reader momentum from the increased appetite for the serious, intelligent coverage of Mandela carrying through to this year. It’s as if people got a taste for it last year and the papers have given them more to chew on in this quarter.

Let’s hope the readers keep chewing now that the election is over and I think the emphasis on strong  regional stories that resonate with the readers are serving the regional dailies well.  The Dispatch’s series on the scandal of how funds meant for Nelson Mandela funeral in the Eastern Cape have been diverted to all sorts of questionable places is the best example of this.

Here are the figures for the best performers – most of them belong to Times Media Group – among the newspapers (year-on-year figure is in brackets):

  • TMG’s Daily Dispatch, which showed the biggest rise of all the dailies (4/5%) and which is  based in East London: 30 199 total circulation     (28 879);
  • TMG’s The Herald, based in Port Elizabeth: 23 605 (23 372);
  • Independent Newspapers’ Isolezwe, based in Durban: 119 846           (116 186);
  • TMG’s Sowetan, based in Johannesburg ( national paper): 99 403        (98 258); and
  • Independent Newspapers’ The Post (weekly), based in Durban: 45 503     (44 984).

Other titles to note in this quarter include:

Independent Newspapers’ The Star and Caxton’s The Citizen are still battling with falling sales. They were at 101 711 (106 484 YoY) and 57 385 (63 854) respectively and both are doing significant amounts of incentivised sales.

Ilanga’s circulation woes also continue. The twice-weekly isiZulu title was at 100 853 (117 115 YoY) but at least this was up on the immediate  previous quarter (95 994) and there were no incentivised sales. (Ilanga is owned by the investment wing of the Inkatha Freedom Party and Media24.)

The Mail & Guardian is down (to 44 266 from 45 279 YoY) after picking up sales in the last quarter of 2013 year-on-year but this is probably due to a significant cover-price increase.

TMG’s Sunday Times is down again year-on-year (to 405 458 from 442 018 YoY) but this is still mostly as a result of stripping out incentivised sales. This year there remains only 10 000 third-party bulk, which was at       12 000 in the last quarter of 2013.

Meanwhile, the consumer-magazine industry looked a bit grim in the first quarter of the year with most  showing decline year-on-year and suggesting that readers are buying fewer magazines and sharing copies more in these straightened economic times. One can, after all, do without a mag when money is tight. It is worth noting that back issues were a feature of the women’s general category in particular.

The only titles to show growth year-on-year were Destiny Magazine, Elle, Kuier, Move! and Sarie.

Always of interest is the battle between the Financial Mail and Finweek – one which we can say the FM has won hands down. In the first quarter of this year, the FM was at 23 400 (23 049 YoY) while Finweek was at 11 955 (17 571).

GrubstreetSouth Africa’s leading media commentator Gill Moodie (@grubstreetSA) offers intelligence on media, old and new. Reprinted from her site Grubstreet. This piece was published first on Journalism.co.za, the website of Wits University’s journalism school.

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Published by Herman Manson

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