by MarkLives (@marklives) Subject to finalisation, Media24 is planning on shuttering five magazines and two newspapers; outsourcing and reducing the frequency of its remaining monthly magazines; taking two newspapers digital only; and reducing staff in related support services. All of this would be as a result of the covid-19 pandemic in South Africa.
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The planned interventions are expected to affect around 510 staff members — with a proposed reduction of close on 660 positions — out of a total staff complement of 2 971, largely across the print media and distribution divisions. The company will start consultations with staff today.
Magazines
According to a press statement released this morning, Tuesday, 7 July 2020, the magazines on the closing list would include Move!, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Bicycling and Runner’s World. DRUM would disappear from print and would now only be available in digital format.
Parenting titles, Baba & Kleuter and Your Pregnancy, would be produced independently by editor Helen Schöer. The remaining monthly titles — Fairlady, SARIE, SA Hunter/Jagter, True Love, tuis | home, Weg! | go! and Weg! Ry & Sleep | go! Drive & Camp, as well as the fortnightly Kuier, would see editorial production outsourced.
All the monthly titles would switch frequency to six issues per year, and eight issues for tuis | home, SA Hunter/Jagter and Man Magnum. Weeklies Huisgenoot, YOU and Landbouweekblad would continue to be produced and published in-house.
Newspapers
On the newspaper front, Son op Sondag and Sunday Sun would both close down. The Eastern Cape edition of Son would also close. Volksblad and Die Burger Oos-Kaap would exit print and be available as digital editions only on Netwerk24.
Four community newspapers in KwaZulu-Natal would also close down, including Amanzimtoti Fever, East Griqualand Fever, Hillcrest Fever and Maritzburg Fever. Noordkaap and Kalahari Bulletin would be consolidated into a single newspaper, Noordkaap Bulletin. Kroonnuus and Vrystaat Nuus would be consolidated into Vrystaat Kroonnuus. Theewaterskloof Gazette would be incorporated into the Hermanus Times.
The group also announced an acceleration of the digital transition of The Witness; it’s unclear what this means for the print edition of that paper over the short term.
The company intends on reducing staff in its media distribution business, as well as in divisional and corporate services departments related to the proposed reduced Print Media Operations.
“Unrecoverable”
“Even with a return to pre-covid-19 economic levels, the impact of the pandemic on our print media operations will be unrecoverable,” says Ishmet Davidson, Media24 CEO. “Sadly, we have no choice but to restructure our business now to curtail the losses in our print portfolio and allow us to focus on keeping the retained titles sustainable and in print for as long as possible.”
See also
- #OpenForBusiness — Radar
- #CoronavirusSA — Radar
- #CoronavirusSA – Special Section
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The post BREAKING: Media24 planning to close multiple magazines, newspapers appeared first on MarkLives.com.
