Kevin Bloom

An astute media professor, confronted with the apathy of his first-year journalism class, throws a question into the lecture hall. “Do the media reflect or represent society?” he asks. The class’s interest is piqued when the good professor explains why anyone should care.

With the government’s broad-based BEE plans firmly underway, highly geared finance structuring models that fail to deliver value to a wide constituency are set to become a thing of the past. How do broadcast media’s high profile empowerment entities MIC, HCI and Kagiso Trust differ from the Nail model? Kevin Bloom reports.

Do journalists have an inflated sense of their own importance? Gus Silber, the Mondi Magazine Awards convenor of judges, clearly thinks so.

A major output of the modern corporation is the organisational chart, or organogram. As a general rule, the bigger the corporation the more adept it is at manufacturing organograms: stroll through the premises of any company with sufficient heft and you’ll not fail to notice the truth of this axiom.

Alec Hogg, founder and chairman of Moneyweb, has taken his singular brand of hard-hitting business interview across four mediums and onto the JSE. Kevin Bloom looks for the story that got him there.

There’s an obvious danger in undertaking an in-depth cover piece on the chief of government’s communications apparatus. When one is reporting for an audience of media professionals, a significant percentage of whom are editors and journalists trained in the watchdog paradigm, one runs the unsettling risk of being written off as a lapdog of the leadership, a pawn for politicos, a flunky of the ruling faction.

Media 24, Naspers’s print arm, has launched an assault on rival Independent Newspapers’s dominance of the Durban newspaper market. Under the title <i>Weekend Witness</i>, the Pietermaritzburg-based <i>Natal Witness</i> has introduced a Saturday paper aimed at Durban, the coast and inland KwaZulu-Natal.

Noam Chomsky, the man once referred to by the New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," doesn’t think much of sports. He sees it kind of like Karl Marx saw religion the ‘opiate of the masses’.

Its no surprise that the flood of fresh newspaper titles arent pouring in at the top end of the market. Quality journalism doesnt translate easily into profit.

For some, advertising agencies and media independents represent a racist fortress guarded by conservative marketers who are out of touch with consumer trends. Will Nat Kekana have better luck with the capitalists holding the cash than hes had with the agents? Kevin Bloom reports.

Thebe Mabanga is hot shit. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> confirmed as much two years ago, in print. Recently Vodacom caught on and gave him an award worth R300 000 for being the most outstanding young journalist in the country. Kevin Bloom finds out if Mabanga talks like he writes.

Financial print is being held hostage by its most sacred principles. Advertising revenues slump as the revision of an old rule introduces equality to a crowded market. Theres also the fallout from Randgate, which questions the sectors role in shaping public perception. Koffi M. Kouakou and Kevin Bloom examine an industry in flux.

Taxis have got to be the toughest space a media owner could play in. Kevin Bloom speaks to the chiefs at ComutaNet and GMR about their game.

David Shapshak, winner of the 2002 Telkom ICT Journalist of the Year award, translates techno talk into digestible English. Kevin Bloom speaks to him about his career.

The Broadcasting Amendment Bill has been the big item on the SABC’s corporate agenda over the last couple of months. The people in Auckland Park seem pleased with the final result, arguing that the broadcaster’s editorial independence is now guaranteed. It may not be so simple. Kevin Bloom writes that Peter Matlare’s balancing act is as delicate as ever.

If the media oil the wheels of the free enterprise system, and the US media supplies most of the grease, maybe it’s a redundant question. We’re consumers, right? So put away the Che Guevarra T-shirt and get with the programme. Consolidation, corporate accountability and the rights of the consumer all feature in this month’s editorial comment.

South Africas media and marketing research may be the envy of the world, but the institutions that control and fund it are being threatened from within. Why are SAARF and MIT under the whip? What improvements are the stakeholders proposing? Kevin Bloom reports.

In 1967 a near-fatal disease struck The New Yorker then, as now, one of the most successful magazines on the planet. Fortunately for the owners, the virus kind of petered out before The New Yorker keeled over.

There’s not going to be a Big Brother 3 this year. As it turns out, the experience of interactive navel-gazing wasn’t so much fun the second time round. Instead of giving the kids of local subscribers yet another SMS-based national bulletin board, Multichoice is going after untainted subscribers up north.

Theres a prevailing view on broadcast regulation in the developed world: the only justification for it is when the market can’t provide enough competition. Kevin Bloom comments on competition regulation in the media.

Q: Why does a dog wag its tail? A: Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog. In this first editor’s comment of this first issue, it’s probably appropriate to say a little something about the strapline.

There are more questions in this month’s issue than answers. On the cover we ask a big one: what price SAARF? How much is the industry willing to pay for the common currency research that has faithfully served it for close on 30 years, making it the envy of the world?

Having infused urban youth station YFM with his programming intuition, Randall Abrahams is now general manager of commercial radio at the SABC. It seems hes carrying the fervour to Metro FM, 5FM, and Good Hope.

The statutory landscape of commercial broadcasting in South Africa is up for review. As a prelude to legislation, chairperson of ICASA Mandla Langa has called for submissions from the stakeholders. What does Langa hope to achieve? What do the media owners want? Kevin Bloom finds out.

Terry Volkwyn, CEO of Primedia Broadcasting, has an imposing reputation. Is she hard as nails, or just good at her job? Kevin Bloom finds out.

There’s an old story about an English newspaper that makes a fitting hors d’oeuvre to this month’s cover piece. Editor Kevin Bloom takes a look at the relationship between marketing and circulation.

Sidebar to cover story.

After a year of uncertainty the funding of the South African Advertising Research Foundation, which coordinates the vital "common currency" research used by media and marketing, has been secured. Under an industry agreement, a 1% levy on advertising revenue will be collected from all stakeholders except PMSA.

For years Caxton, Independent Newspapers and Media 24, who between them publish the vast majority of South Africa’s "knock and drops", have dominated the CPA. But it now looks certain that Caxton and Independent will pull out of the organisation, making way for marginalised members.

While the fifth "dummy edition" of <i>ThisDay</i>, SA’s long-awaited upmarket daily newspaper, has generated a great deal of nods of approval regarding its editorial range, story treatment and design elements, there are serious misgivings about the business model.

Despite two recent parliamentary hearings on racism in advertising, new research confirms that "white" media continue to garner a disproportionate share of South Africa’s advertising revenue. The implication is that sustained inequality in spend prevents local media from painting a more realistic and inclusive picture of South African society.

Media diversity and its inherent role in ensuring the right to freedom of expression stands a better chance of surviving in South Africa than in the United States, according to <i>The Media’s</i>’s Kevin Bloom.