Bongani Majola
The initial enthusiasm shown by South African media consumers in the wake of the United States terror attacks two weeks ago is dwindling markedly, judging by circulation figures.
Given to trumpeting their “rise in sales” the country’s major newspapers were uncharacteristically coy, confirming only that their sales are back to where they were before the attacks on the US.
South Africa’s biggest selling daily, Sowetan, stood at 191 000 sales last Tuesday, and Business Day at around 44 000 copies. The events of three weeks ago have seen an unprecedented upsurge in circulation for all media print and electronic.
The Star, for instance, recorded an unaudited increase from 180 000 to 210 000, while the Mail & Guardian had its biggest-yet sale of 55 370 in the week of September 11, raising questions about whether South Africans could sustain such intense media consumption. Other major newspapers were reluctant to reveal figures, saying “it’s a competitive world!”
The full impact of the “crisis news” has not yet been counted at major media monitors like the South African Advertising Research Foundation and the Association of Marketers. But the initial interest displayed towards global news agencies like CNN, Fox News and Sky News has since dwindled. But these networks cancelled all advertising in the first week of the attack at a cost of billions of rands.
Professor Guy Berger at Rhodes University believes that broadcasters incurred more costs in the medium term because they lost advertising revenue. For instance, e.tv cancelled all its advertising in the first two days of the breaking news.
Berger says media that sell adverts on a short-term basis, like newspapers, have clearly made more money by increasing their circulation. However, “in the long term public appetite for news is much stronger and the challenge is for media to keep audiences at high levels”.
What this “crisis news” has demonstrated, says Berger, is that “globalisation has come of age. There has never been such global interest in international affairs, even the not-so-regular news consumer has been drawn in.”
The impact is difficult to measure, says Roland Adams, journalism lecturer at Peninsula Technikon. “But it was interesting to see that the media daily newspapers, broadcast stations and websites gave wide coverage to the attacks for the first two days without the customary advertising support.
“Most media, international and national, seemed to believe that the events in New York and Washington were so important as to override bottom-line considerations.”
Natal University’s Ruth Teer-Tomaselli, also warns that it’s not possible to predict how long the increased circulation would last, as “there is no guarantee that what [the media] were seeing was anything more than a blimp in the circulation.” Ironically, Teer-Tomaselli continues, an increased audience doesn’t necessarily mean more money coming in, it can even mean less. For as long as the “crisis” continues, she adds, referring to broadcasting in particular, “the schedules remain unstable, which is a commercial disaster.”