OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 10.00PM.
A NEW Sunday broadsheet aimed at black readers, Sunday World, is to be launched in March next year. Joint publishers Times Media Limited and New Africa Publications announced on Monday that the paper will be distributed in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Northern Province and North-West. TML chairman Cyril Ramaphosa said the initial print run will be 100000 copies and the paper will sell for around R3. No editor has been appointed yet. The staff, expected tobe around 44, will based at the Industria site of the Sowetan.
Ramaphosa said more than 700000 readers of the Sowetan do not read a Sunday newspaper, and Sunday World will target these readers.
“We also expect that the new paper will draw readers away from other publications catering for the same market.”
Mike Tissong, deputy managing director of New Africa Publications, said the title is intended to reflect a “pullthrough of history” from the banning of Weekend World in 1977.
TML chief executive officer Lawrence Clark said TML has no plans at present to buy the title of the Johannesburg daily The Citizen or to launch a competing tabloid.