In contrast to sold daily and Sunday publications, local Limpopo newspapers growth buck the downward trend. Based on the latest ABC’s Total Circulation Q2 April – June 2014 vs 2015 figures, the sold national newspaper declined on average by 8%. In stark contrast, Capricorn Voice achieved an amazing growth of 45% while Bosvelder Review achieved 12% growth, despite competing against other local newspapers which have been in the area for a longer period.
“We can attribute this growth to our taking advantage of, and managing distribution in areas with growth potential,” says Hannes Cilliers, branch manager at Northern Media Group. “In addition, unique local editorial content was boosted through the use of additional freelance journalists. This strategy has clearly paid off as Thoyando experienced a significant increase where an additional 2000 copies were sold.”
Bosvelder Review underwent a comprehensive change of character, offering a less conservative and more market-related news approach which has seen better acceptance by our readers.”
“This is good news for our Limpopo advertisers,” says SPARK Media’s CEO, Gill Randall. “These papers know that providing localised information in a format that’s easy to refer to, and that is relevant to consumers, is vital to the publications growth.