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.