ThisDay’s outdoor lament
Last week ThisDay made use of its front page to lament the fact that it is getting shafted by its opposition, who are preventing the newspaper “from using Johannesburg’s lampposts” for advertising its edition.
It is considering legal action against the unnamed competitors for squeezing the paper “out of a crucial marketing opportunity”.
The Print Media Association of South Africa (PMSA) is accused of blocking the newspaper’s attempts to obtain access to street poles as it is not yet a member of the association.
The body’s memorandum and articles of association dictate that new entrants are blocked from joining for three months — this in an attempt to ensure that fly-by-night publishers are precluded from sullying the good name of the association.
“There was nothing stopping them from entering into bilateral agreements with local councils to obtain permission for their advertising,” says Natasha Stretton, general manager of the PMSA.
ThisDay‘s management was aware of the ruling; in fact CEO Graeme King was head of the PMSA when it was ratified.
Availability remains a big challenge for the paper. Somewhat naively ThisDay is utilising distribution company Allied, which is owned by two of its biggest competitors (Independent Newspapers and Johncom).
Could the paper that is selling less than 25% of its daily print run afford to set up an exclusive distribution infrastructure?
We think not.
One industry insider claims that its costs are running close to R1-million a week.
And then there was the contentious issue of paying some staff for 12 months before the news- paper launched.
Nobody said it was going to be easy and King, former MD of Independent KwaZulu-Natal, knows this better than most.
Hollywood, Bollywood and motherhood
Research conducted about two years ago indicated that there are more than 200 film and television studios in South Africa, many of them standing empty because of a slump in television commercial production and a lacklustre film industry.
Independent broadcaster e.tv, together with Anant Singh, the only filmmaker in our country who makes money, is developing film studios in the Cape.
The deal is worth R426-million and the investors are hoping to attract overseas filmmakers to our shores.
We hear that the publicity shy e.tv is also building studios in Johannesburg. Can we look forward to more local content?
Beef it up, please
Touchline Media, publisher of Kick Off, the fortnightly maga- zine aimed at an estimated four million soccer-crazy South Afri-cans, claims that the well-heeled Reserve Bank Governor, Tito Mboweni, is an avid reader. Could it treat him with a little more respect by upping the paper and layout quality?
Readers wishing to alert Agent RS to matters of media, marketing or advertising importance can do so at [email protected]