Category archives: Media

Latest newspaper circulation figures. Yowzer!

There’s blood on the floor in the most recent set of print sales figures – for the second quarter (Q2) of this year that were released this week by the Audit Bureau of Circulations of SA (ABC) – but there are also titles fighting for their lives, street by street, and even winning back a tiny bit of territory.

There are a few newspapers out there that are actually managing to arrest circulation decline – and not just in the vernacular market.

This tells us that it is possible in newspapers today to be interesting and have meaning to people but you have to think very deeply about how to be relevant and you have to work very hard and be very patient about getting there, street by street, block by block.

This is not a traditional battle on open terrain but difficult, complicated urban warfare.

ABC Analysis Q2 2013: The biggest circulating consumer magazines in SA

The ABC has released circulation statistics for the period April 2013 to June 2013. Here are a couple of consumer magazine ABC numbers that popped out for us. We also updated our list of the biggest circulating consumer magazines in SA!

Total ABC member circulation fell to 6,135,842 from 7,047,759 in the previous corresponding period (and from 6,207,891 in the previous quarter).

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

ABC Round-up Q2 2013: Newspapers cont circ decline, consumer mags fall by 13%

Extracts from the latest 2nd Quarter ABC presentation given by Gordon Patterson. Total Newspapers decreased by 33,000 copies compared to the previous quarter. Daily circulation has declined annually by 6.76% since 2009, equivalent to 466, 000 copies. Weekend paper circulation has declined annually by 4.3% (429,000 copies) over the last four years.

Major TV shake-up great for consumers

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) There’s a real shake-up of TV coming South Africa’s away – especially of television news – and none of it bodes well for our newspapers.

The SABC launched its 24-hour news operation on the DStv satellite network (on channel 404) last week while the Gupta family – owners of TNA Media, parent company of The New Age newspaper – is getting ready to take their 24/7 news operation live (on channel 405) very soon.

The Guptas’ Africa News Network 7 – or “ANN7” – already has a rather slick-looking beta website up and Atul Gupta has been tweeting recruitment ads

Waldimar Pelser: “Our rivals on Sunday aren’t other papers; it’s going on a picnic or lying in”

They started on the same day – June 1 this year – and that’s not the only similarity between Waldimar Pelser, the new editor of Rapport, and Bongani Siqoko, editor of the Daily Dispatch.

Both are young editors and are former news editors; both have studied in the UK (Pelser at the elite Oxford University). Both men are very much of their communities and have all sorts of interesting things up their sleeves.

Crucially, both must try grow circulation in this toughest of times in the newspaper industry.

For Pelser, who has been both a foreign correspondent covering Africa and the news editor of Beeld, that means achieving a balance between having stories that are of interest to readers and those that are in the public interest – and not forgetting about reputation and premium-quality journalism packages.

“Circulation is never the only thing one chases,” he told Grubstreet. “Of course, it pays our salaries and we constantly have to find and organically develop new markets. But if it were the only thing that mattered, you would put on the front page that which aims squarely at the lowest common denominator – and probably push up nudity and sex and alarmist politics. But none of these things, we believe, is really in the interest of our readers or journalism as a trade on even the future of democracy.

Saarf/NAB fight explained: It’s about who owns the data

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Understanding how the South African Audience Research Foundation (Saarf) puts together its research is difficult enough so if you’ve been scratching your head lately over the battle between the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and Saarf, then you are not alone.

The NAB – which represents the radio and television media owners – resigned recently from the Saarf board (as of the start of next year), leaving many in media wondering what this means for the future.

Communication failure: ‘Brand Obama’ tired and tarnished

by Kevern Verney, Edge Hill University An illustrious predecessor of Barack Obama once wrote: “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” But Thomas Jefferson didn’t have to live with today’s 24-hour media cycle – and while there’s no evidence that the current US president’s capacity for work has in any way dissipated in recent months, his luck – and more importantly his knack for media management – appears to have.

Take Obama’s visit to Africa this weekend. The only news anyone really wants from Africa right now concerns Nelson Mandela. The symbolism of Obama’s visit to Senegal’s slave ports has been swallowed up in the bedside vigil the whole world is keeping for Africa’s greatest statesman.

The situation is fraught with risk for the US president. Any visit to Mandela’s bedside risks being seen as a cynical move by Obama to boost his flagging popularity, while his speeches will be analysed for signs that he is trying too hard to link his own civil rights credentials to those of South Africa’s first and most beloved black president. Meanwhile, away from Mandela’s hospital bed, Obama faces hostile criticism of US trade policies and a “NoBama” campaign organised by South Africa’s biggest trade union.

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