ICEBOX 02 Cape Town

Date: February 28 – March 10, 2007Venue: Various
Liquid Fridge presents a festival of contemporary creativity in audio/visual art. With the focus on the electronic, open and South African, ICEBOX combines music, film, video and interactive media through a programme of screenings, performances, club nights, workshops and an exhibition.
ICEBOX 02 Cape Town features music-makers, free thinkers and electronic tinkerers Bernhard Loibner (Austria), Brendon Bussy, Com.it, CY Cowboys, Garth Erasmus, Heather Ford (Johannesburg), Dean Henning (Durban), Julian Jonker, Rebecca Kahn (Johannesburg), Microstripe, Radioboy, Story Boy, and many other proponents of eclectic sounds and plush pixels.
Visit www.liquidfridge.co.za to learn more.

Ope brief aan Koos de la Rey

Herman Wasserman shares his thoughts on Bokkie van Blerk's 'De la Rey.' It's worth a read. "Staan op, en kom doen wat Bokkie van Blerk en sy volgelinge vra: Kom lei hulle. Jy sal hulle moet gaan haal. Maar moet nie op die verkeerde plek gaan soek nie, hoor... Nee, jou volgelinge sal jy moet gaan haal in Tygervallei, die Somerset Mall en Menlyn Park. Uit die parkeerterreine sal jy groot, blink viertrek-voertuie agter jou perd sien aanry, volgelaai met proviand van Woollies."

SA's richest journalism prize launched

South Africa’s richest journalism prize has been launched at Wits University. The award and fund is named after Taco Kuiper, a successful South African publisher and business analyst with a passion for investigative journalism, reports journalism.co.za. The Taco Kuiper Award will offer an annual prize of R200 000 to the best example of investigative journalism in print media and R100 000 as a second prize. The fund will provide grants of between R10 000 and R150 000 every year to support investigative projects. For more click here.

SHOP! closed

Media24 Women’s Magazine Division has announced the closure of SHOP! magazine.

SHOP!, an alternate monthly magazine published by Media24 Women’s Magazine Division, focused on delivering a buyer’s guide for the South African consumer, was first published in the current format in August 2005. The November / December issue of SHOP! (currently on street) will be the final issue.

Marí Lategan, publisher of SHOP!, says: “Although circulation and advertising responses were encouraging, we do, however, now believe that the market will not support the business expectations that we have for the title within the agreed timeframes.”

Permanent staff are being re-located to other areas of the business where possible.

Femina magazine sold to Media24

Associated Magazines has announced the sale of the South African title, Femina, to Media24. CEO of Media24 Magazines, Patricia Scholtemeyer, said that Femina will slot in with the Women’s Magazine Division under the leadership of publisher Mari Lategan. “Femina complements our portfolio and we welcome the magazine and the staff into our stable. We believe that Associated Magazines made the right decision to sell Femina to us; the move ensures the longevity of a strong brand that they have built up over the years,” said Scholtemeyer.

Management Today heading for SA

TopCo Media has bought the licence to publish UK based Haymarket’s business title Management Today in South Africa. In the UK, Management Today enjoys a readership of over a 100 000 copies monthly. In South Africa, the publication will fulfil the growing trend for information about leading South African and international organisations, as well as the individuals behind these organisations. Management Today will be published from April 2007 in South Africa and will include international and relevant UK business news from the UK edition. Around 60% of the magazine will be South African and African based. The initial print run will be 30 000.

M&G: SABC pays magazine R123 000 for cover story

The M&G Online reports that The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) paid a business magazine about R123 000 for a cover story featuring its chief executive, Dali Mpofu, in the June issue. Find out who it was - click on the headline!

Psychologies heading for SA

Media24 Women’s Magazines has announced the launch of the South African edition of Psychologies. To be published bi-monthly, the first issue arrives on shelf in April 2007 and will be edited by Tracy Melass.

Psychologies’ editorial approach is geared at the female reader and focuses on self-accomplishment, better living and relationships. The magazine thus meets the desire of more and more women to improve their personal lives.

Since Psychologies was launched in France during 1997, it has become the title with the highest growth during the past ten years, increasing its circulation by 330% at 350 000 copies. Since then Psychologies has launched in Italy, Spain, Great Britain, China, Russia, Belgium and now South Africa.

Psychologies will launch in South Africa with a print order of 37 200 copies and will be available at leading retailers and magazine distributors from the 4th of April 2007.

Krew folds

The plug has been pulled on four issue old lads mag Krew. Publisher Tim Culley announced this to suppliers and partners on Nov 1.

"It is with a vast amount of sadness I must inform you that the World Report Media indicated last week that they no longer wish to sustain Krew Magazine until its forecast break-even next year," wrote Culley. "This has come as a huge and shocking blow to all 20 staff, including myself, who have worked so passionately and tirelessly on what many South Africans regard as a quite brilliant product. Over the last week I have desperately attempted to seal a buy-out deal with Caxton here in SA, but sadly the urgency of the situation made the deal unattainable and they formally declined the offer today. The way World Report Media conducted this process was sudden, without warning, and heartless, and we are all left stunned and without employment or due salaries by their actions."

Rival magazine Zoo was launched by UCM in October.

End of road for style magazine

Caxton Magazines Management today announced that style magazine will be closed in the New Year – the December issue will be its last. The editor of style, Naomi Larkin (previously editor of Tatler in Singapore) is to stay on, partially to assist with the launch of CLEO, and partially to co-ordinate the launch of a number of other titles which are destined to come to market shortly. Caxton anticipate no retrenchments of staff.

Harber: SABC’s frequency is jammed

It is a sad day when a media company goes to court to stop the dissemination of information by another media company. That is what SABC did on the weekend, when it sought an urgent interdict to make the M&G remove from its website the report of the inquiry into its newsroom. See his blog for details.

Son nou in Engels

Media24 Jan Malherbe, CEO of Media24 Newspapers, provides some background information on the launch of an English edition of Cape-based tabloid Son.

Son was launched some three years ago as an Afrikaans weekly appearing on Fridays with different editions for different provinces but mostly the same content. It did very well, particularly in the Western Cape, bringing huge growth in Afrikaans newspapers readership.

In April last year we launched it as a daily newspaper in the Western and Southern Cape, while still having the Weekend Son as a weekly in other provinces. The daily has also done surprisingly well.

We have now introduced an English version of Son as a daily for the same area. The target market is middle income readers who want an entertaining, less serious tabloid dealing with issues of concern to them and their communities. The content is mostly the same as the Afrikaans edition, with some zoning for different areas.

The launch date was last Friday (October 7, 06) so it is far to early to talk about circulation. The Afrikaans market is bigger but we anticipate that the English version will add sufficient numbers to make the combined circulation even more attractive.

All this is totally separate from the Daily Sun which has a different target market.

Ingo Capraro is the national editor of all Son editions.

TheMedia picks ... Fienie

TheMedia is celebrating its fourth birthday with its October issue. Page 31 includes a look back at the best TheMedia has had to offer over the course of its history, as picked by new editor (since June 2006) Fienie Grobler. The best column appeared in July 06, best interview in June 06, best article in July 06, best cover in July 06. No word of Mondi award winning ex-editor Kevin Bloom in this issue.

Relaunch: TopBike

Media24 is launching their next title, TOPBIKE, later this month. Recently acquired from Kemsley and Schoeman, topBike is Media24’s third launch in the motoring arena in the space of three months, which kicked off in July with Max Power, followed by topCar and topMotor in August.

New Launch: Tjil

Tjil is launching as a monthly, independent, glossy Afrikaans youth lifestyle magazine is hitting the shelves on 16 November. The broad target market is middleclass and upper (LSM 7 – 10), male and female Afrikaans speaking youth between the ages of 13 and 24. The December 2006 issue of Tjil will go on sale on 16 November as a glossy A4, with a minimum of 104 pages and an initial print run of 20 000. It will be published by TLL Publishing.