by Thinus Ferreira
The already-struggling South African news media has been left reeling and is doing triage in what has been described as a "media extinction event", trying to keep newsroom doors open as a devastating wave of layoffs and salary cuts have swept the industry over the past two months because of the ongoing Covid-19 national lockdown.
A new study by the South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) released on Monday makes for nightmare reading that found that while the need under the public for accurate news from dwindling, credible news sources has never been greater, the cataclysmic drop in advertising income because of Covid-19 is decimating the news biz.
Hundreds of jobs have already been lost and vanished seemingly overnight in the local media pool spanning South Africa's TV, magazines, newspapers, radio and online media.
The new 32-page SANEF study paints a horrifying picture of how the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting government lockdown regulations have further eroded South Africa's news industry that is "desperately looking for new ways of sustaining itself while audience demands for timely, credible but free news surges".
The report states that South Africa's magazine industry was dealt a massive blow "with the closure of two magazine publishers with the loss of 97 jobs at the one publisher and up to 250 at the other".
"Away from the limelight, small, independent, hyperlocal print publications were also ravaged. This was in the first phase of the lockdown as small publishers were unable to access emergency funding, resulting in the loss of an estimated 300 to 400 journalistic jobs."
"Workers at three of the so-called Big 4 print media companies were forced to take salary cuts of up to 45% and temporary lay-offs have been widely implemented. It is not known how many jobs have been lost at community radio stations," the study says.
"Neither the regional and national newspapers of the Big 4 South African publishers nor broadcasting was immune to the plunge in advertising, which varies from an estimated 40% to 100%." The "Big 4" are Independent Media, Media24, Arena Holdings and Caxton & CTP.
Online news surge
The SANEF study notes how the public has sought out news and information to a higher degree than ever before because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Perhaps the biggest upside of this dark period for the industry has been the massive surge in traffic to credible online news sources."
"Traffic to news websites increased by 72% in March, while these sites saw a 44% growth in unique browsers. Many news websites saw double-digit growth in their audience numbers, with News24, Business Insider, The Citizen, Fin24, SABC and EWN growing their traffic by more than 50% in March."
"The crisis brought on by the Covid-19 lockdowns has pushed over the edge operations that were imperiled or survivalist, and arguably have highlighted fissures in the news media industry. How well the news media will emerge from the crisis will depend on the speed of the economic recovery and the attendant increase in advertising revenue."
The SANEF study says that "While print media consumption has been devastated, broadcasters and online platforms, linked to legacy print operations or not, have seen dramatic uptake in their production of news as citizens seek sources of trustworthy, credible information in the time of uncertainty around the Covid-19 pandemic."
Hundreds of jobs lost
According to the SANEF study print magazines were not granted “essential service” status in terms of government regulations for the first phase of the lockdown and can be regarded as the first media casualty of the lockdown.
"Other print publications may follow the magazine closures," the study found. "Caxton, once more, seems to have moved decisively by closing or merging freesheet titles. The company announced the closure of its North Eastern Tribune along with City Buzz and that the, "Footprints of certain local newspapers in Gauteng metropolitan areas, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal needed to be adapted for the company to provide the best solutions for readers, customers and clients in these markets."
According to the study, Carol Mohlala, executive director of the Association of Independent Publishers, estimates that 300 to 400 journalists’ jobs have been lost as small, mostly black-owned independent newspapers, often serving indigenous-language groups in far-flung rural areas, have closed and a further 700 jobs in the value chain lost.
"Notably, once heralded as the savior of print, tabloid newspapers have not proved immune. Media24 has cut back the print edition of its popular tabloid Daily Sun to four provinces: Gauteng, Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga."
The study notes that freelance journalists and photographers have also been badly affected.
"The danger is that in South Africa and elsewhere the strong may get stronger, including the social media giants that soak up much online revenue, and the weak be victims of the competitive destruction that marks major economic downturns."
"WhatsApp, Facebook, Netflix (and other streaming services) and Zoom are among obvious beneficiaries of the work-from-home reality forced on former office workers."
Stark news audience change
The Covid-19 pandemic has heightened awareness of the value of credible news and boosted readership, viewership and listenership of broadcasting and online outlets that provide such news, the SANEF study finds.
"Newspaper readership has been devastated by the decrease in the movement of people. Andrew Gill of Arena Holdings explains that newspaper retail sales, for instance at supermarkets, took a big hit thanks to the decline in traffic, while informal street, and door-to-door, sales in e.g. townships dropped to almost zero."
"While free-to-air TV has been validated by the coronavirus, pay-TV in the form of DStv has been knocked by the unavailability of sport, arguably DStv’s major drawcard and in an era of film and TV-series streaming via the Internet, offset to some extent by MultiChoice’s own standalone Showmax online service."
"Netflix and other streaming services are bound to have been beneficiaries of the lockdown, along with social media, competing for the attention of audiences with news. However, the lockdown and confinement of many South Africans to their homes with the main link to the world outside being a computer screen has as expected boosted online news."
According to the SANEF study the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic "resulted in a surge in web traffic, most notably the news category".
"In particular, massive month-on-month growth can be seen across News24, Fin24, Citizen and BusinessInsider who all recorded more than 50% growth in unique browsers. Typical monthly variances in traffic for these top 10 sites is in the region of around 10%, which highlights the massive increase in online browsing during March 2020."
"Some advertising vanished entirely during the lockdown. Freesheets normally thick with inserts for major stores and full of other retail advertising and small classifieds shrank to eight pages of news without ads. For broadcasters, the problem is compounded by the time given to official announcements displacing commercial programming."
"A high-level SABC source notes that the Ministerial briefings have disrupted schedules and have been a 'major displacement of revenue at the SABC, but we have to do the right thing."
Media extinction event
The SANEF study notes that "Businesses already on the brink will be pushed over the edge".
"Financial problems may be multifaceted, and stem from the relationship between the paying audience and the content published. Some reflection is needed within the news business of whether journalism is offering what the audience wants and needs."
"In the time of Covid-19, magazines, and in time newspapers, may face what has been called a 'media extinction event', affecting the news industry more than the 2008 global recession, including African newspapers."
"So far, the print media has been hardest hit and this threatens to affect the amount of news being produced, with massive closures of community newspapers, and possible shrinking of newsrooms through retrenchment. Freelance journalists, a longstanding part of the supply chain of news content, are exceptionally vulnerable."
"Broadcasting will not remain unaffected. The SABC has been affected by advertising revenue declines. The corporation would have received its full bailout amount of R3,2 billion cannot ask for more from the cash-strapped fiscus. Private media houses would have to stand in line with other worthy recipients of rescue money, such as the unemployed whose numbers will be swelled."
For domestic news media, the key word in the immediate period is "survival", says the study. "Those organisations entering the crisis with serious cash-flow problems will have difficulty surviving."
'Devastating'
"While news organisations are clearly worth preserving, a thought must be given to individual journalists displaced by the wake of the Covid-19 destruction," the study says.
"Some funding could be directed towards individuals to help them cope with retrenchment and retrain for new work. South Africa no longer has a journalism union to fend for journalists."
"A return to a 'new normal' may not prevent further job losses," the SANEF study finds in its conclusions.
"So far, none of the major newspapers have been closed, but a lot depends on the way the ending of the lockdown is handled, the length and severity of the Covid-crisis-induced depression, and whether the lockdown has changed audience behaviour."
"Retrenchments and shrinking of news staff have so far been confined to print, but broadcasting has also been hit by a decline in advertising and what levels of ad revenue will return to in a depressed economy is uncertain."
Ths study notes that "the Covid-19 crisis has been devastating".
"The effect can be calculated in jobs lost – still difficult at this stage to ascertain with any certainty – and most importantly in the shrinking of the vital-for-society news ecosystem as the country and the world copes with an unprecedented economic decline."
