Okay. So every year AC Nielsen’s AdEx figures are released. They’re analysed, criticised and regurgitated in countless articles. The flaws and inaccuracies are hotly debated. Today it’s my turn – but what I thought I could do was look at some of the “Hell, I didn’t know that!” and not really concentrate on the “So what, that hasn’t changed in years!” With this in mind, I’ve tried to look under the skin of a few of media types—maybe I’ll do the rest another time.
First to television. Fine, so SABC 1 is still the biggest at R1 billion per annum and e.tv is closing in at R900 million. M-Net and DStv together wrote over R950 million, but the really interesting bits come from putting DStv’s breakdown under the microscope.
SuperSport 1 is the single biggest revenue generator with R89,5 million, or 23% of all DStv revenue. If one then adds up all the sports channels (and CSN), one finds that sport effectively brings in almost R180 million, or some 47% of all DStv revenue. Then we also see that Discovery, National Geographic and BBC Prime are all bigger revenue spinners than Movie Magic (just under R22 million). Seems the days of subscription TV being sold off the back of movies are long gone.
Also interesting are the news channels. There is really questionable demand – BBC (R6,7 million) together with CNN (R4,4 million) and Sky News (R3,8 million) generate combined cash that is less than KykNet (R18 million) and a whack under Hallmark (R22 million).
Onto newspapers. Perhaps it’s at the “poorer” end of the market where the most interesting comparisons lie, especially the “quality” papers. Here we see the Mail & Guardian, operating in the same arena as the Sunday Independent, attracting more than 500% the revenue – R29 million versus under R6 million. The former is allegedly in profit for the first time ever, the less said about the latter, in financial terms, the better! At the other end of the spectrum the popularity of the Sunday Times (R309 million) remains incredibly visible. The title is taking more than Beeld (R301 million), which puts out 5 issues a week, and almost what The Star takes in a week (R339 million).
Next radio. Jacaranda and East Coast, would you believe, are now only R10 million behind Highveld’s R192 million! Ukhozi predictably did the best of the under-valued PBS channels at R128m, but again it’s the laggards that are most interesting. Given the huge numbers above, one can understand why P4 with revenue around a paltry R5 million in Cape Town and Durban combined, is seen by potential buyers as something with enormous potential.
And those poor community stations! Many believed they’d be great business opportunities. I know a lot of their revenue wouldn’t be picked up by AdEx, but with a bunch of them generating under R50,000 per annum, I think over the years the medium is almost guaranteed to slide into commercial oblivion.
The last area is magazines. We are constantly reminded of the fact that the medium is niching itself. Over the past few years this has resulted in fortnightly publications going monthly – reducing overheads dramatically, but revenue too. Well in 2003 the Huisgenoot and You combination still reigned supreme, making a mockery of the niching and specialisation concept. The two together attracted a massive R214 million in revenue. Nobody else could get R40 million out of one title.
So what’s 2003 telling us? The overriding impression I get is the competitive nature of the market. There is certainly no paucity of choice. Indeed, the more one looks at it, the more overtraded the market appears. The net result? Advertisers and media planners revert to products they know and trust.
Harry Herber is group managing director of The MediaShop