The announcement that Sunday Times is to start a daily newspaper called - wait for it... The Times... has come as no real surprise to media watchers and marketers. Because, for some time now after the Sunday Times had successfully boosted its subscription base by offering added value publications to subscribers only, it has ended up with one of the media industry’s most valuable assets – 127 000 subscribers. And it was only a matter of time before someone at Johncom media asked the inevitable question - “Why aren’t we cashing in on all this?”
While some might argue that starting a daily newspaper in South Africa, just as the current media boom appears to have peaked, is a pretty risky thing to do, given the number of spectacular casualties we have seen in the recent past - such as ThisDay.
But, The Times will almost certainly be something entirely different. After all, it is starting out not only with a massive captive market but a target market it is able to identify individually and absolutely. Now, this is something that should really appeal to advertisers.
So much so that it should become a valuable money spinner - that is if the Sunday Times ad department can get beyond just flogging ads and start creating relevant marketing packages for advertisers. Not something they’ve been exactly brilliant at in the past.
Something else that indicates that this foray into the daily market could be successful is the appointment of Ray Hartley as editor. He is a newspaper veteran with years of experience behind him. He has his feet on the ground and understands the concept of giving his readers what they want instead of simply imposing his personal whim on the editorial pages.
All in all, the launch of a daily aimed at its subscriber base makes a lot of sense for the Sunday Times. Leveraging existing assets is what media sustainability is all about these days and it would not have made sense for the paper to simply rest on its Sunday laurels in spite of being 100 years old.
But, while everything looks rosy for this venture, everything will depend entirely on whether those 127 000 subscribers are receptive to a daily newspaper. On whether they are people who are currently buying, subscribing to or occasionally reading existing dailies. Or whether the bulk of them are people who only buy newspapers on Sundays because that’s the only time they have available to read them.
That’s the big challenge, but good on Johncom for giving it a go.
