Newspapers ABC Q4 2021: Groundhog day for newspapers

While, as always there are one or two standouts in the categories, both in increases and decreases on the previous quarter, on the whole, the movement on either side was marginal.

However, there was a significant occurrence that impacted the number of newspapers.

"The Free Newspaper category growth of 19% from Q3 to Q4 was driven by the return of the government newspaper, Vukuzenzela, to the ABC. "The latter impacted the Total Newspaper Category positively," says the ABC in a statement.

The ABC adds that the Hybrid (part sold and part free) Newspaper category showed positive growth in 2021 compared to 2019 (pre-Covid-19) because of new members joining the ABC in 2020. "The indicated distribution, for this reason, is higher in Q4 2021, than before Covid-19, but still shows a decline of 19,406 compared to Q4, 2020."

Daily newspapers

"The Daily Newspaper category indicates a somewhat stable year-on-year trend with a quarter-on-quarter decline of -1%, which is less than the trend for this category - compared to Q4, 2020," states the ABC.

Q4 was kinder to this category, with 11 dailies up on the previous quarter - as opposed to Q3 which had only Business Day show an increase on the previous quarter.

The increases on the previous quarter were in single figures, with The Star and Daily Dispatch the best of the six newspapers that had increased over 1%, but still under 10%. The remaining five had increases of under 1%.

This was not the case in the prior years figures, where 13 dailies showed a decrease on the prior year, some in double figures. This was still an improvement on Q3 where 20 dailies had a decrease on the previous quarter.

While Business Day did not continue its good run from Q3 on the previous quarter, it did show an increase on the prior year. There were some good increases on the prior year from The Cape Argus, Cape Times and The Star.

The Daily Sun showed the biggest loss to the prior year, with Son (Daily), which had also showed a loss in the Q3 on the previous quarter, and Isolezwe also in double figures.

Weekly Newspaper*

"The Weekly Newspaper category shows the most significant decline with 16,031 fewer in distribution from Q3," says the ABC.

This shrinking category had little to give, and with only nine newspapers in the category, there was only good news for The Voice (a Botswana-based newspaper) and The Post, both showing an increase on the previous quarter.

Weeklies that showed decreases in the previous quarter included The Midweek Sun, Soccer Laduma, and Diamond Fields Advertiser, all of which had shown good increases on the previous quarter in Q3.

Mail & Guardian also experienced a decrease on the previous quarter.

There were losses for all the South African-based weeklies in the prior year.

Weekend newspapers

"Weekend Newspapers declined from 484,407 to 467,261 in Q4 of 2021 constituting a 17,146 difference for Q3," says the ABC.

There was not much weekend cheer in this category, with only two newspapers, the Daily Dispatch Weekend Edition (formally the Saturday Dispatch) and the Pretoria News Saturday, showing an increase on the previous quarter over 3% out of the five newspapers with an increase on the previous quarter. The rest were under single figures ranging from 0.5% to 0.9%. The losses over the previous quarter ranges from -1.4% to -14.1%.

The Daily Dispatch Weekend Edition (formally the Saturday Dispatch) was also up on the prior year along with a number of other newspapers, but the majority were down on the prior year in losses ranging from -7.1% to -27.9%.

Local newspapers

According to the ABC: "The Local Newspaper category came in at 4,279 fewer - an 8% decline compared to the same period in 2020."

This category did have some good news with 10 newspapers up on the previous quarter and six up on the prior year, although given a large number of newspapers in this category, this represents just under a third of the category.

The Zululand Observer Weekend was the only newspaper to show an increase of double figures (13.4%) on the previous quarter. While the rest suffered losses, the majority were single figure losses with the exception of the Vryheid Herald and the Northern Natal Courier, which had double-figure decreases.

Six newspapers showed an increase on the prior year, but the losses on the prior year from some newspapers were large, from -29.5% for the Knysna Plett Herald and the Northern Natal Courier and Newcastle & District Advertiser suffering a -25.8% decrease each.

Free newspapers

In the largest category, there were incremental increases ranging from 0.1% to 5.4% in the previous quarter. The prior years figures looked a bit better.

Umgungundlovu Eyethu (former Umgeni) showed good increases over the previous quarter and prior year. The Highvelder and City Vision (Khayalitsha) had good increases on the prior year.

*Non-South African titles from Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, and Lesotho not included.