4.  The media landscape 

Though South Africa has a wide range of media, both print and electronic, there are many people in remote rural areas who still do not have access to a diverse range of information. Radio has the greatest reach of any media in South Africa. 

4.1 The press

Newspapers and magazines (apart from ‘knock and drop’ newspapers) are not readily affordable, as many cost more than, for example, a loaf of bread. This in part accounts for the high readership per copy of popular newspapers - with one copy of some newspapers being read by up to 14 people according to latest AMPS statistics (SAARF AMPS 2007B).

 Four major companies dominate the South African newspaper and magazine industry:

• AVUSA Limited (previously Johnnic Communications Ltd)

Avusa leads the weekly newspaper and financial publications market through the Sunday Times (with 3.3 million readers the biggest paper in the country) and Sunday World, and shares in daily influential newspaper Business Day and the weekly Financial Mail magazine. AVUSA Ltd also owns the daily Sowetan newspaper (aimed at black readers), major newspapers in the Eastern Cape and a range of free sheet newspapers. Avusa has interests in media, book publishing, the music industry and other entertainment entities (including movies). In mid-2008, major BEE investment company Mvelaphanda Holdings (owned by business tycoon and ANC National Executive Committee member Tokyo Sexwale), finalised the acquisition of a 25.5 per cent stake in Avusa. Sexwale resigned as Executive Chairman when he was appointed Minister of Human Settlements after the April 2009 elections, but did not relinquish his shares in the company. 

• CTP Pty Ltd (Caxton)

Caxton publishes knock and drop local papers as well as the national daily newspaper Citizen. The newspaper division of the company owns or co-owns 88 titles (including free and sold newspapers). The magazine unit has 15 titles. CTP Pty (Ltd) is one of the largest commercial printers in South Africa. 

Avusa Ltd has an indirect 38 per cent stake in Caxton, though its shareholders at the time of writing had approved the splitting off of these assets into a separately listed company - ElementOne. 

•   Independent Newspapers

Independent Newspapers is a wholly owned subsidiary of Independent News        and Media (SA) Limited which is owned by Irish tycoon Tony O’Reilly’s Independent group. It publishes 14 daily and weekly newspapers in South Africa’s major metropolitan areas including The Star (Johannesburg), Cape Argus (Cape Town), Isolezwe (IsiZulu newspaper), Cape Times (Cape Town), the Mercury (Durban) and the Pretoria News. Sunday newspapers include the Sunday Tribune and the Independent on Sunday.  

•   Nasionale Pers

Naspers owns Media 24, which in turn controls 60 per cent of South Africa’s   magazine market. Naspers defines itself as a “multinational media company with principal operations in electronic media (including pay-television, internet and instant-messaging subscriber platforms and the provision of related technologies) and print media (including the publishing, distribution and printing of magazines, newspapers and books, and the provision of private education services)”.  

It publishes 50 newspaper titles including Afrikaans newspapers Die Burger, Beeld, Volksblad and the weekly Rapport, the tabloid Daily Sun, as well as the Sunday newspaper City Press. In South Africa, Nasionale Pers controls internet service provider M-web, as well as Multi-choice which owns subscription broadcasters DSTV and M-Net.

In the 1980s there was a thriving ‘alternative’ press sector including journals, magazines and newspapers. As these survived largely through foreign funding, the majority of such publications closed down during the early 1990s as donor funding foci shifted. 

There are a few smaller but significant media groups (notably Mail & Guardian newspapers and UmAfrika) and according to reports over 200 non-profit and community newspapers. Some of the alternative journals have survived (such as the Agenda feminist journal and the Labour Bulletin) and recently a number of other left-wing publications have emerged (such as New Agenda and Amandla).

Most of the mass media publishes in English or Afrikaans. Smaller media groups face huge challenges as the major distribution networks and the big media players control printing presses.  Newspapers are primarily distributed in metropolitan areas, and not always easily accessible in poor areas in towns. The costs of purchasing newspapers for poor people are thus prohibitive if one considers transport costs. 

As can be seen from the table below, the number of newspaper and magazine titles measured by SAARF AMPS has grown since 1996. 

Table 2: Growth in publications carried on SAARF AMPS

Source: SAARF AMPS 2008A

Penetration of print media inevitably is highest amongst wealthier communities. SAARF reports, for example, that whilst only six per cent of the population in LSM 1 reads a newspaper, there is 75 per cent penetration in LSM 10. 

The largest newspapers according to SAARF AMPS are described in Table 3 below.

Table 3: Largest newspapers in terms of readership

Source: SAARF AMPS 2009B

Other influential dailies are the Afrikaans Beeld with a readership of 1.6 per cent and Business Day (0.3 per cent). The weeklies Mail & Guardian and Sunday Independent have a readership of 1.6 and 0.6 per cent respectively.  

4.2 News agencies

There is one national news agency – the South African Press Agency (SAPA) – which is jointly controlled by the major newspaper groups. In May 2008 the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) launched a news agency to provide raw or packaged audio and visual content. 

A number of smaller news agencies have been established including African Eye (in the province of Mpumalanga), Health-e (focusing on health news), and the Eastern Cape News Agency based in Grahamstown.

Government has established a government news service BuaNews, aimed at distributing government information and news to media. 

4.3 Broadcasting

4.3.1 Radio 

Radio has the greatest reach of any media in South Africa – with the public broadcaster’s stations accessible to nearly all South Africans. Radio is obviously one of the most affordable mediums as radio sets are relatively cheap and stations are broadcast free-to-air. According to Stats SA, 76.6 per cent of households (766 of every 1 000 households) owned working radio sets in 2007 (compared with 73 per cent in 2001). Radio listenership has been steadily increasing and (according to SAARF AMPS) 93.3 per cent of South Africans listen to radio. The SABC and all the commercial stations also stream content over the internet.

As of March 2009, 96 community and three low power radio stations as well as 13 commercial and 18 SABC radio stations were licensed.

The public broadcaster has stations in each of the official languages, as well as a station broadcasting in two Khoi San languages - !Xu and Khwe. 

Commercial radio stations are centred in the major metropolitan areas (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Polokwane, Nelspruit and Mafikeng) and broadcast in English primarily.

Community radio stations are targeting both geographic communities and/or special interest groups (e.g. Muslims, Chinese speakers, “Boere Afrikaners” etc).  They broadcast in a range of official and other local languages.

(More details in chapter three)

4.3.2 Television

Ownership of television sets has increased rapidly since 1994 (linked in part to the extension of the electricity grid).  According to Stats SA’s 2007 Community Survey, 65.6 per cent of households in 2007 (656 out of every 1 000 households) owned a working television set (compared to 53.8 per cent in 2001).

12 television operators are licensed in South Africa:

o three national public television channels 

o one national private free-to-air channel (e.tv)

o one terrestrial subscription service (M-Net, owned by Naspers) 

o one existing satellite subscription service (DSTV, also owned by Naspers) 

o three newly licensed satellite subscription services, which were due to start in the beginning of 2009. However, licencing issues with the regulator ICASA have delayed the launching of all three. These services are Super 5 media, previously known as Telkom Media (before Telkom sold its majority stake to a Chinese company), On Digital Media and a religious multi channel provider, Walking on Water).

o three one-year community television licences (Soweto TV in Johannesburg, Cape Community TV in Cape Town and Bay TV in Richards Bay). Other community television services have operated on and off on 30 day special event licences. (More details in chapter 3) 

4.4 Internet

According to Stats SA’s Community Survey 2007, computer ownership in the home almost doubled between 2001 and 2007. 8.6 per cent of households owned computers in 2001 increasing to 15.7 percent of households in 2007 (157 per 1 000 households).

Internet usage was not measured in 2001 and therefore no comparative data is available. The statistics however show that 7.3 percent of households had access to internet at home in 2007. 

The most used media site is News24 (part of the Nasionale Pers/ Media 24 stable). Bizcommunity (a media and marketing electronic newsletter) cites Nielsen/NetRatings research indicating that the site recorded more than one million unique South African visitors in October 2007 (the first South African web site to do so). According to Nielsen/NetRatings, news and weather sites are the most frequented.  

4.5 Telecommunications

The percentage of households with a landline telephone has declined from 24.4 percent in 2001 to 18.6 percent in 2007 (186 per 1,000 households). At the same time there has been a significant increase in cellular telephone ownership from 32.3 percent of households in 2001 to 72.9 percent in 2007 (720 per 1 000 households).  

The “ICT Sector Performance Review 2006” published by the Link Centre (which focuses on ICT research), states that mobile operators cover over 90 per cent of the country, though subscribers are predominantly in major urban centres.  The study attributes this partly to costs – and points out that South Africa’s mobile costs are higher for both high and low-end users than those in, for example, Botswana. 

The report furthermore notes that there is an “access shortfall” in relation to broadband: 

In terms of GDP per capita (PPP US$), South Africa is broadly comparable to Turkey, Mexico, Poland, Hungary and the Slovak Republic. Broadband penetration per hundred inhabitants, on the other hand, is on average two-thirds less in South Africa than in any of these five other countries.

The authors attribute this to both lack of supply and high prices. 

Many researchers have emphasised that access to telecommunications still reflects apartheid disparities in South Africa – and thus whilst richer households (which are still predominantly white) have access to a range of services, poorer (predominantly black) households have limited access.