Readership figures do not equate to actual physical copies. It is
generally accepted that more than one person reads each copy of any
given edition or issue. In South Africa, on average, one newspaper is
shared by roughly seven people.^12
Based on the AMPS readership figure of 39 000 , and considering the
reader-to-newspaper ratio of 7 : 1 , The New Age distributed about 5 600
copies per issue in 2011. According to the average readership figure,
this would suggest that the 4 200 subscriber copies sent to schools,
colleges, libraries and government departments in the Free State
constituted about 75 per cent of all copies sold.
Under Magashule, the Free State government appears to have been the
first major tax-funded dumping ground for The New Age. It must have
been a considerable source of stability for a new publication entering
an industry that faced serious financial constraints. It leaves one
wondering whether the Guptas would have been able to launch the
newspaper at all had it not been for their close ties to the premier.
The bulk of any newspaper’s revenue, however, does not come from
its cover price. It comes from selling advertising space. Magashule’s
government also contributed generously in this regard. It is rather
telling that one of the few full-page advertisements in The New Age’s
pre-launch ‘Heritage Day special edition’ in September 2010 promoted
‘the rate of service delivery by the Free State government’.^13
A review of advertisements in The New Age in March 2011 revealed
that, after state-owned telecommunications company Telkom, the Free
State government was the paper’s most frequent advertiser.^14 In 2016 ,
the provincial government spent just shy of R 4 million on
advertisements in The New Age, amounting to half of its advertising
budget for print media.^15
nora
(Nora)
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