South Africa's biggest newspaper, the Sunday Times, is rumoured to be
planning a new daily title, but is keeping tight-lipped. But media
insiders say the project is well under way, with a launch possible as
early as Easter, writes Jocelyn Newmarch in the Mail & Guardian.
Sources say the new paper, to be titled the Daily Times, will be distributed free of charge to Sunday Times subscribers, giving it an immediate circulation of 80 000 copies. This would put it ahead of the Citizen, which boasts 71 432 copies, according to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The paper would, at least initially, be a regional Gauteng paper, rather than a national publication, in a tabloid format.
The weekly apparently put together a team late last year with a view to launching around Easter of this year. Commentators agreed that the Sunday Times would be unlikely to go ahead with a project that wasn’t expected to succeed.
“It is potentially a brilliant idea,†said Wits journalism professor Anton Harber. The daily would “almost immediately be financially viable with automatic readership … It would be a readership they already know and have a relationship with.â€ÂÂ
The big question, Harber said, “is an editorial one. Daily papers have a very different process, cycle and rhythm to a weekly.â€ÂÂ
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