Media

Some of the largest printing and publishing companies in South Africa are based in the Western Cape. Naspers, the largest diversified media company in the country; Ramsay Media; Picasso Headline and Highbury Safika Media are all based in Cape Town.

Newspapers
The Daily Sun is one of the new tabloid newspapers that has shaken up the Western Cape market, breaking the 500 000 figure for circulation and reaching some 3.8 million readers. With banner headlines that often blend English, Afrikaans and Xhosa in unusual and witty ways, these cheap sources of news are attracting an entirely new readership, turning on its head the prediction that the age of print was doomed.

Independent News & Media publishes 17 daily and weekly newspapers across the country’s major metropolitan centres. In the Western Cape, the group publishes mainstream titles such as the Cape Times, the Cape Argus, the Saturday Argus and the Sunday Argus, as well as 14 community newspapers and the tabloid, the Daily News.

In 2009, Independent News & Media launched an in-house cadet-training programme. The Independent School of Editorial Excellence will train candidates for 10 months, combining classroom instruction with hands-on experience. Candidates are expected to have a three-year degree or diploma to qualify for the course.

Die Burger is the Western Cape’s largest mainstream daily Afrikaans newspaper and is distributed widely throughout the province. Naspers, through Media24, owns Die Burger, as it does the 13 community titles it circulates in the Boland, including Eikestad News. Several of Media24’s magazine titles, such as Men’s Health, are produced through subsidiary publishing house Touchline Media in Cape Town. The Newspaper Advertising Bureau (Caxton) dominates the community newspaper market in the Southern Cape. Titles include the George Herald, Oudtshoorn Koerant, The Advertiser and Karoo News.

Television
While Gauteng dominates the television broadcasting industry in South Africa, as home to both the SABC and M-Net, the Western Cape is the base of the private television station e.tv. The free-to-air station broadcasts news, sport and local and international entertainment. An attempt to start a community television station in Cape Town floundered in 2009, presumably a victim of the recession.

Radio
Commercial radio stations in the Western Cape include KFM, Cape Talk and P4, offering listeners a range of talk and music radio options. Publicservice radio broadcasting is provided by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). The SABC is wholly owned by government, but is independently financed. There are more than 100 community radio stations in South Africa, covering all cultures, all languages and all regions.

The SA Advertising Foundation’s Radio Audience Measure Survey (Rams) survey of June 2009 showed that radio listenership in the Western Cape declined somewhat in the year under review. Saturday audiences, in particular, were smaller, by about 7%. Community radio generally did better than mainstream radio.

Eden FM grew its Western Cape audience to more than 100 000, showing an improved reach of 3.4%, up from 1.9% a year earlier. Radio 2000, which expanded its offering beyond sports coverage in 2008/09, increased its weekly listenership from 314 000 to 490 000. The national trend with respect to time-spent-listening showed an increase: South Africans spent nearly 20 minutes longer per week listening to radio, up to an average of 29 hours and six minutes.

Publishing and printing
Juta is South Africa’s oldest publisher and is best known for its law reports and academic publishing. It also has a strong educational division and publishes general works under its Double Storey imprint. Juta also runs UCT Press. In 2009, the company relocated from its Wetton premises to a suite of offices in the heart of the Claremont central business district, where it also opened a new bookshop.

New Africa Books is a leading independent publisher where the name of David Philip, renowned as a trendsetter in indigenous publishing, lives on as an imprint. David Philip has published Nadine Gordimer, Mongane Wally Serote and Ivan Vladislavic.

Leading educational publisher Maskew Miller Longman’s national headquarters are located in the Cape Town suburb of Pinelands. Random Struik is situated in the eastern precinct of the Cape Town CBD. Now majority controlled by New Holland Publishing, the company has a strong profile in nature, lifestyle and maps. The general imprint, Umuzi, scored a hit in 2009 when Peter Harris’ In a Different Time won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for non-fiction.

Media giant Naspers controls several publishing houses through Via Afrika. Those with headquarters in Cape Town are Nasou Via Afrika (school books), NB Publishers (several general imprints such as Tafelberg) and Book Promotions (trade, education), which is headquartered in Diep River.

The Western Cape has a high reputation for quality printing. CTP Group Printing is among the leaders, printing some 47 million books, over 32 million magazines and about 70 million commercial print items every year. Paarl Media Group (PMG) has printing facilities in Paarl and a gravure plant in Montague Gardens. Despite a tragic fire that hit the Paarl plant in 2009, PMG made a decision to continue to operate out of the Boland town.

Cape Town Book Fair
The Cape Town Book Fair has become a major event in the publishing world. Held in the middle of winter at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the massive variety and open nature of the fair attracts huge crowds every year. The Cape Town event is unusual in that it combines sales of books to the public with trade events that are designed to promote networking between publishers. The Frankfurt Book Fair is the international partner of the Cape Town Book Fair. The 2009 event attracted 269 exhibitors and 43 583 visitors over four days.

ONLINE RESOURCES
Independent Communications Authority of South Africa: www.icasa.org.za
Media Institute of Southern Africa: www.misa.org
National Association of Broadcasters: www.nab.org.za
South African Broadcasting Corporation: www.sabc.co.za
South African Press Association: www.sapa.co.za