Category archives: Media

Grubstreet: Getaway — we won’t bamboozle you like Google

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) RamsayMedia’s Getaway is updating its ethos to reflect a more sophisticated view of travel among the South Africa’s growing middle class – a move that the magazine’s editor, Cameron Ewart-Smith, describes as “a fundamental shift in the very fabric of our magazine”.

This also means that the iconic outdoor adventurer’s magazine that was launched in 1989 has been redesigned. You’ll see the changes in the October 2013 edition that is already available in store. They include a glossy, more sophisticated cover, bolder use of typography and pictures, more graphics and a brighter palette of colours.

Ewart-Smith told Grubstreet last week: “(The change) was borne out of looking at South African travellers and realising there is a much more diverse community of travellers than waspy, (national) park-going traditional Getaway readers.

MagLove: Miss Miley is here to stay

by MediaSlut (@mediaslut) The best international and local magazine covers in MagLove this week: Taste Magazine Australia, Newsweek, Rolling Stone US, Elle Decoration South Africa, House and Leisure, and Getaway.

Tech Law: ANN7 sings the Streisand Effect blues

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) News channel ANN7 has been the object of both considerable ridicule and controversy lately. On the one hand, the 24 hour news channel launched by the similarly controversial Gupta family has been criticised for poor production values and content and, on the other hand, an Indian company known as Aiplex Software has been filing take down notices with YouTube in an effort to remove a growing number of satirical videos targeting the fledgling station.

KZN’s Vuma FM: breaking new ground for vernacular media

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Of the three new FM stations to hit the air waves in the past year, Vuma 103 FM in KwaZulu-Natal is the least talked about in media circles – and yet in many ways, it is the most interesting.

Both Smile FM in Cape Town and the Johannesburg-based Power FM got a lot of buzz when they launched (in March and June respectively) but Vuma FM has been on the air since November last year, quietly gaining audience. According to the latest RAMS figures from the South African Audience Research Foundation, out last week, Vuma FM was at 93 000 listeners (past seven days) – and that was only its urban audience.

Based in Durban but reaching most of KwaZulu-Natal, the station goes out in 90% isiZulu with 70% music – most of which is gospel and also more broadly inspirational.

Owned by KNI, a consortium led by Revered Abe Sibiya who also heads the One Gospel satellite TV station, Vuma is unusual in the South African media landscape because it is a vernacular product that targets upper LSM groups.

Most vernacular media offerings, such as the very successful Isolezwe newspaper, target the lower LSMs.

NAB/SAARF fight will force more realistic readership measures for print

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) What an illuminating morning I spent today at the joint South African Audience Research Foundation (Saarf)/National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) presentation on the way forward for TV research now that the NAB has given notice of its resignation from Saarf (effective 31 December 2014). Last month I wrote a piece about what lies behind the Saarf/NAB fight and after today’s frank question-and-answer time (the most interesting were the questions from media planners), I’m sticking with what I wrote earlier but can a bit more.

What struck me at their recent presentation in Cape Town is that:

1. The broadcasters are relishing their role of rocking the boat;

2. That they are genuinely pleased that TV market research is now going to be more comprehensive and more credible; and

3. That there’s a general smugness about that fact that it’s maybe time for print to get its comeuppance (though this was never stated).

TREND. report: The PR evolution

Public relations agencies and communication strategists need to reengineer themselves as social businesses to meet client communication needs.

This is a key finding to emerge from a report on the evolution of the public relations industry by trendwatching site, TREND. at www.TRENDlives.info, called ‘Social Communications’.

The public relations industry has reengineered itself in recent years to focus on acquiring digital skills to compete with digital agencies in the social media realm, as well as repositioned as reputation management specialists – a core skill needed by communication firms today.

In South Africa, steps to “professionalise” the industry are seen as hugely positive in setting professional standards for PR in the country. A green paper is ready to go before parliament.

“This is the most significant time to be a communication practitioner in South Africa,” says Louise Marsland, Publishing Editor of TREND. and the author of the PR report.

ABC Analysis Q2 2013: MarkLives’ Big Newspaper List

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period April 2013 to June 2013. Here are a couple of numbers that stood out in terms of newspaper circulations.

Note: We compare the current figures with the same figures for this time last year and not with the previous quarter.

ABC member circulation totals:
Daily Newspapers: down to 1,494,023 from 1,599,299 for the previous corresponding period
Weekly papers: down to 619,400 from 668,954
Weekend papers: down to 2,205,462 from 2,396,355
Local papers: down to 437,815 from 465,158
‘Hydrid’ papers: down to 165,641 from 166,951

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