Independent industry news for marketing, advertising & media execs
n the wake of the massive phone-hacking scandal playing out in Britain, its prime minister, David Cameron, has called for the scrapping of media self-regulation and for stronger press regulation by government.
Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, one of the largest circulation English newspapers in the world, was found to have hacked the phones of celebrities, politicians, sport stars, even a murdered school girl, victims of the London subway bombings – the list goes on.
One of the more interesting aspects of reality TV is the regular emotional schlock fest that occurs three-quarters of the way through whatever series it is you happen to be watching. Contestants are broken down by days on end without access to their electric can openers, fast food and loved ones.
Andy Davis’s name may forever be associated with the defunct student magazine SL. It really shouldn’t be. The not terribly rebellious and long-dead youth magazine, which he used to edit in the early part of the previous decade, has been properly usurped by the creation of Davis’s own publication – the youth-orientated Mahala magazine and website.
Soccer Laduma is the biggest-selling sports publication in the country, as well as the biggest-selling male interest publication. It’s also the second biggest-selling weekly paper and the third biggest-selling newspaper in South Africa (after the Daily Sun and the Sunday Times). Not too shabby for a publication as niche in its content as Soccer Laduma.
Firms such as New Media (formerly New Media Publishing) have always positioned themselves as the meeting point between content and marketing. Now they are moving away from pulp and ink (though it remains a large and profitable chunk of the business) towards multiple platforms including mobile, the web and tablets.
Backtrack pulls stories from the archives of our predecessor, media.toolbox, which published media and advertising commentary between 1998 and 2008.
Branko Brkic is South Africa’s best-known maverick publisher. He puts out the content every editor (and reader but not necessary advertiser) dreams of getting past the bean counters and corporate lawyers upstairs. He also loves throwing the publishing dice. It often brings him fame, less often fortune, but always sees him pushing the boundaries of modern publishing (and at least from a distance, sometimes, fiscal sense).
I was fascinated to read earlier this week about Daily Maverick’s irrepressable entrepeneur Branko Brkic’s plan to launch SA’s first iPad daily “newspaper” under the Maverick brand. It’s a concept that I’ve been keen on ever since laying my hands on an iPad and I too have spent many hours doing sums on the back of knapkins wondering if they can be made to work.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) released the local print media’s 2011 first quarter circulation figures earlier this week and, as usual, it makes for interesting reading. A couple of figures really jump out as worth investigating.
Nikki Cockcroft, long serving CEO of Primedia Online, where she oversaw leading South African portal iafrica.com, digital agency Prezence and trafficking solutions provider 365 Digital, has announced her resignation, effective 30 June 2011. She joins retail giant Woolworths as head of online and will take up her new position at the beginning of July.
