Drum is South Africa’s best-known black monthly magazine, famed overseas and locally. Now it’s going weekly, reports Jacquie Golding-Duffy
IN September, after nearly five decades as a monthly, the country’s oldest black magazine — Drum — will be published weekly.
National Magazines (NatMags) is changing its print schedule to bring Drum into line with its sister magazines, You and Huisgenoot.
Launched in 1951 by Jim Bailey, recently knighted for his publishing efforts in Africa, Drum has been one of the leading general interest magazines in the black market ever since. In the past, it was seen as a vibrant publication covering issues not included in the mainstream press.
The magazine captured the heritage of the 1950s and was the voice of people in the townships. It always offered a peek into black culture, often bringing the reality of township life to its readers via its fabulous photographs and excellent copy.
The publication kept up to date on events, dramas and traumas — happenings in and around Sophiatown, Fietas (today Fordsburg), Coronationville and Bertrams. Its early investigations were hard-hitting and some of the best writers in the country were published in its pages. All this and more was the essence of Drum — – a ”popular publication with colourful writers”.
However, some in the media industry feel Drum’s early days are tainted by the deaths of many brilliant journalists such as Can Themba, Casey Motsisi and photographer Bob Gosani. As one former Drum journalist put it: ”It saddens me to think of that time when journalism was associated with drink. Many of our brilliant writers literally committed suicide by drinking themselves to death. It was the mood around journalism during the Fifties and Sixties where writing good stories went with partying hard and boozing it up.”
Drum Publications, which nurtured many well-known reporters and included in its stable Drum, City Press and True Love, was bought by Nasionale Pers (Naspers) in 1984.
Naspers, the holding company of Natmags, placed City Press in the realm of its newspaper division and the magazines Drum and True Love were controlled by NatMags.
Naspers is also the owner of Beeld, Die Burger, and Volksblad, among others.
Drum was slowly repositioned over the years, aligning itself with the successful You and Huisgenoot formula. Its circulation from July to December 1995 was more than double that of three years ago. Its latest figures stand at 192 130 copies sold per month, a remarkable comeback from an all-time low of 83 000 copies per month in 1993.
”Huisgenoot sells more copies per week than the Sunday Times, and if Drum sells a mere 140 000 copies as it goes weekly, NatMags will be selling about one million copies via its three family magazines,” says Natmags chief executive Salomon ”Salie” De Swardt.
He says Drum will be the ”third leg” of the Huisgenoot and You family magazines group. Like every business venture, the launching of Drum as a weekly is ”a risky business”.
With about R2-million being spent on promotion and advertising, the running and printing costs of maintaining a weekly will run into millions of rands, says De Swardt.
NatMags trade marketing manager Louis Eksteen agrees: ”The launch of Drum as a weekly is a multi- million rand operation. The reason we were prompted to go weekly is because we no longer see the black market as emerging. The market is already out there and Drum will meet the needs of its readers as a family magazine in the same way that Huisgenoot and You serves its market.
Weekly publication means the magazine can be ”more newsy and topical”, De Swardt says. As a weekly, it will contain articles which takes one behind the news, either via a human interest or analytical article, he adds. For the first time in South Africa, three magazines belonging to the same stable will be fulfilling the needs of families across the spectrum.
De Swardt says he is ”enthusiastic and optimistic” about the magazine’s future, and that many jobs for black journalists have been created with the publication going weekly. Editorial staff had to be expanded and black journalists, some recruited as trainees, are being taught to write in a magazine format, he says.
NatMags repositioned True Love about a year ago when it made the publication more upmarket with a glossier cover, bringing it in line with Fair Lady and Sarie. The staff was expanded and the magazine is doing well under Khanyi Dhlomo-Mkhize, daughter of Oscar Dhlomo.
”I believe we will do equally well with a weekly Drum, but as with any multi-million rand business move, there is an enormous amount of risk involved,” De Swardt says.
Drum editor Reg Vermeulen, former editor-in chief at Bona magazine, joined the publication in August 1993. Vermeulen says the idea was to rejuvenate Drum and to adapt the Huisgenoot and You formula, but not to become a clone of these publications.
He says the publication will remain ”reader-driven” and will include a lot more sports and entertainment coverage than its sister magazines. ”I firmly believe Drum is the new magazine for the black market and a publication which will be guided in to a new era in South Africa.”
Being a white editor of a black market publication does not bother Vermeulen, who says it is high time people looked beyond colour. ”It is of no consequence that I am white. All that matters is that the material produced is quality journalism and that we all have the same vision.”
With a brand new printing works in Montague Gardens, Cape Town, the weekly Drum will be the first magazine to come off this Natmags Press in September.
The printing works, believed to be the largest in Africa, had a start-up cost of R215-million and will continuously be upgraded into 1997.
Drum is the six largest consumer magazine after Huisgenoot, Readers Digest, You, Bona and Sarie.
NatMags’s other publications include Fair Lady, Sarie, Finansies & Tegniek, F & T Weekly, Woman’s Value and Landbouweekblad.
Ramotena Mabote, who joined the publication at the beginning of May, is Drum’s new bureau chief in Gauteng. The Gauteng editorial office was recently renovated and houses a staff of 14 reporters and four photographers, more than double the complement when it was a monthly. Mabote who recently took top honours at last year’s Sanlam Awards for Education Journalism says he is ”excited” by all the new possibilities available to Drum as a weekly publication.
This move by Natmags is also crucial for advertisers who can now cover the entire spectrum of urban South Africans using three magazines — Drum, Huisgenoot and You — every week. ”A weekly Drum provides advertisers with frequency, access to a growing market and value for money,” Eksteen says.
Apart from a huge consumer marketing drive, a big advertisement marketing event will take place at Mega Music on July 23 and will include an industrial theatre production by The Blue Moon Company and a live performance by a South African band.
l City Press may be partly or wholly sold off to a black consortium and it is believed that talks between Naspers and black empowerment groups are ongoing. Details on who the black companies are is being kept under wraps.