The Rise and Fall of ThisDay Newspaper : The Significance of Advertising to Its Demise
Date
2006-10-31T13:48:24Z
Authors
Bassey, Eno Abasiubong
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Abstract
This study examines the rise and fall of ThisDay newspaper by examining its strategies to
break into the South African media market. The study places ThisDay in the context of
certain factors of the political economy of the South African media and examines how the
dynamics of advertising contributed to the collapse of the newspaper. By analysing
perspectives from Bagdikian (1983) among others, that the success and failure of the
media depends on its success or failure to attract advertising revenue. The study examines
the specific strategies used by ThisDay’s management to attract advertising as a key
source of revenue to determine how the failure or lack of such strategies could have
played a contributory role in the collapse of the newspaper. Among the factors examined
is the further consolidation of ownership in the competing media companies. The
intricacies and complex relationships that existed between the South African media its
owners and advertisers are examined, to determine whether the actions of the competition
contributed to ThisDay’s failure.
The findings of this study show that ThisDay’s entry met what was arguably a major need
for quality news in South Africa’s daily newspaper market; this however, did not prevent
its closure. It had to grapple with too many challenges, most of them internal. The
underlying reason for most of the problems management encountered was the
unavailability of financial resources to run a paper of ThisDay’s magnitude. However the
strategies that its management adopted as well as the business plan were way off the
mark. The demise of ThisDay newspaper is a loss to South African journalism in two
aspects; the industry lost a quality newspaper which greatly improved the level of South
African journalism (the quality of which many now say is in a decline). Secondly, its
failure will serve as a deterrent to any aspiring entrepreneur who would like to put
together a quality product, the perception being that quality newspapers are not
profitable. With the demise of ThisDay newspaper and recently the Nova, it seems that
the South African print media environment has closed its doors to new entrants.
Description
Student Number : 0413406F -
MA dissertation -
School of Journalism and Media Studies -
Faculty of Humanities
Keywords
Media ownership, economics of media, Newspaper Firms, Market Driven Journalism, South African Media