Independent industry news for marketing, advertising & media execs
Times Media has announced internally that as of March 1st Marvin Meintjies, currently deputy editor of the Sunday Times, will be taking over the editorship of Sunday World. Sunday World is a Sunday tabloid with a focus on ‘infotainment’ (as per the TML website)
The announcement states that Meintjies helped launch both the Sunday World and The Times and was deputy editor at The Times before rejoining the Sunday Times.
Kim Penstone talks to Peter van den Steen, the man appointed to save TopTV from bottoming out.
On October 31 last year, TopTV sought business rescue protection under Chapter 6 of the 2008 Companies Act. What this means to TopTV is that it provides the company with a protective bubble within which to restructure itself and hopefully avoid liquidation. What it means to the media industry is that the local Pay TV sector could once again become a monopoly dominated by Naspers-owned DSTV. What it means to court-appointed Business Rescue Practitioner, Peter van den Steen, is that there is a lot of work to be done, because it is in the public’s interest that TopTV lives to broadcast another day.
And, we hasten to add, that’s not just because TopTV has resubmitted its application to broadcast adult content in South Africa!
by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) The innocuous looking case of H v W which was handed down in the South Gauteng High Court on 30 January 2013 is anything but. Judge Willis’ 30 page judgment recognises the harm a Facebook post can do to a person’s reputation and throws the weight of the Court behind the person defamed (and who can afford the legal fees).
by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Is The New Age the Great Evil or just another newspaper trying to get off the ground?
Ever since it launched two years ago, controversy has swirled around the paper because its main shareholders – the Gupta family – are close associates with the family of our controversial president, Jacob Zuma.
The paper has always said its intention is to tell the good-news stories of South Africa and give the government credit where it’s due but not to be the mouthpiece of the ruling party.
But its detractors – especially since the latest controversy around parastatal funding for its SABC business breakfasts – say the paper is nothing more than another Citizen of the infamous Info scandal of the 1970s.
Grubstreet interviewed The New Age’s editor, Moegsien Williams, last week to find out more about how The New Age operates, its emerging business model and what kind of paper he wants it to be.
MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them.
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Publishing houses RamsayMedia and Highbury Safika Media (HMS) are in due diligence with the prospect of a possible merger between the two companies.
Ramsay Media Chairperson Alan T Ramsay has confirmed the authenticity of an email penned by him to RamsayMedia staff earlier today and seen by MarkLives that addresses internal speculation on the possible merger. In it he advises RamsayMedia staff of the state of negotiations between his board and HSM’s chief executive, Kevin Ferguson, their managing director, Tony Walker, and their financial director, Lindsey Allen.
Ramsay confirmed to MarkLives that no deal had yet been signed off on. Because of the due diligence process he was unable to reveal any information on the state of negotiations between RamsayMedia and HSM.
CAR magazine pokes fun at #FNB #Youcanhelp campaign
MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them.
by Gill Moodie @GrubstreetSA Mondli Makhanya has resigned from Times Media Group (TMG) – previously known as Avusa – to write a book.
The former Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian editor resigned as editor-in-chief of the company’s newspapers – a position he took up in 2010 – at the end of December, a fact that flew under the radar screen amid the festive season.
Also little known is that the editorship of the TMG-owned Sunday World is vacant after Wally Mbhele left to start his own consultancy late last year while the grapevine is alive with speculation on who will net the editorship of Business Day – which is half owned by TMG – after Peter Bruce was appointed BDFM publisher in September last year.
Makhanya told Grubstreet this week that industry rumours that he may be talking to consortia interested in buying Independent Newspapers is untrue.
A social contract exists between civil society and business that demands of business to engage with communities on issues relevant to them. Conveniently, business often ignores this contract, preferring to stay close to the politically connected, avoiding ‘hard’ issues and offering little more than sport sponsorships as their part of the bargain.
Faced with the abusive vitriol aimed at even the mildest critics of government performance it’s hard to blame corporate SA from shrugging off its responsibility to actively and publicly engage with civil society on issues of national importance including government performance.
Those too young to vote are already eyeing the difficult and real issues they will inherit from their elders. They need to be heard, now, even if what they have to say to the generation in charge is not what that generation wants to hear.
There is power here. It belongs not to the ruling party, or to big business, but to the emerging political activism of a generation born free. Their day is coming. FNB simply acknowledges this.
