Naspers’s Media24 Deals New Blow to South African Print Media
Naspers’s Media24 Deals New Blow to South African Print Media
Naspers Ltd.’s Media24 unit plans to close seven print titles and outsource most of its remaining monthly magazines, adding to a string of South African publications that have folded since the imposition of a coronavirus lockdown.
The company will start consulting staff on Tuesday about its plans that include changing two regional newspapers to digital-only products and reducing some monthly magazines’ frequency, it said in a statement on its website. The changes will affect about 510 of the 2,971 staff at the unit, which also has interests in e-commerce and book publishing.
“The pandemic has accelerated the pre-existing and long-term structural decline in print media, resulting in a devastating impact on our own already fragile print media operations with significant declines in both circulation and advertising since April,” Chief Executive Officer Ishmet Davidson said in a statement. “Even with a return to pre-Covid-19 economic levels, the impact of the pandemic on our print media operations will be unrecoverable.”
Media24’s downscaling follows a May announcement by Caxton & CTP Publishers & Printers Ltd. of plans to close its magazine division, which held the local rights to People magazine. Associated Media Publishing, which had titles such as Cosmopolitan, announced its closure on April 30.
Most magazines were prevented from printing or selling their titles during a strict lockdown that lasted for five weeks that ran until the end of April, forcing them to either publish digitally or cease operating.
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