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- The Independent Media group is planning major changes at some of its newspapers as it fights to remain sustainable.
- Pretoria News will merge with The Star; Isolezwe ngoMqibelo and Isolezwe ngeSonto will merge into one, while the Sunday edition of Weekend Argus will fall away.
- The media group says the decisions are in keeping with the "austerity measures" it is following to save costs.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
The Pretoria News, which briefly gained global attention last year after reporting that a Gauteng woman had given birth to decuplets, is set to merge with its sister publication The Star.
This comes as the newspapers' owner, the Independent Media group, embarks on changes at some of its newspapers in a fight to remain sustainable.
The Sunday edition of Weekend Argus will also fall away after merging with the Saturday edition of the paper. Staff at the newspaper were informed roughly three weeks ago that Sunday edition of the paper would not be printed after April according go two people who asked not to be named.
Isolezwe ngoMqibelo and Isolezwe ngeSonto will also be merged into a single weekend newspaper.
"This an outcome of the consultative process that the company has had with management in line with the austerity measures that Independent Media are following to ensure the company is sustainable," said a spokesperson for Independent Media on Tuesday.
Independent Media is a subsidiary of Iqbal Survé's Sekunjalo Investment Holdings, which led a consortium that bought SA's oldest media group from its Irish owners for R2 billion in 2013.
Falling circulation
Pretoria News and Weekend Argus have seen their circulations plummet over the past few years, part of a wider trend of falling readership throughout SA's newspaper and magazine industry.
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations data, Pretoria News' circulation fell from 12 532 in the fourth quarter of 2017 to 2 415 in the second quarter of 2022 (which included over 1 000 free copies). The newspaper resigned from the ABC soon after.
Weekend Argus' circulation fell from 51 675 at the end of 2017 to 12 448 at the end of 2022, which included 4 426 free copies.
While the Weekend Argus Saturday and Sunday editions are separate newspapers, ABC data does not differentiate between them.
READ | Tembisa 10: Public Protector finds claims mom gave birth to decuplets 'unsubstantiated'
The Pretoria News' decuplets story, which made headlines around the world, quickly fell apart after the paper could provide no evidence that 10 babies had been born to Gosiame Sithole.
An internal investigation undertaken by advocate Michael Donen found that the newspaper's editor, Piet Rampedi, was reckless for going to print with no evidence of what would have been a medical miracle.
In December acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka released a 57-page report that concluded there was no medical evidence to support the claim that Sithole was pregnant or had delivered decuplets. Rampedi resigned as the Pretoria News's editor in January.
Times are tough
Independent Media CEO Takudzwa Hove has been warning staff for months in memos that the company was in a "challenging" financial situation.
Earlier this year, staff were asked to form working groups to propose solutions to save cash and make the business more efficient.
In late March, Hove warned employees they would only receive 75% of their monthly salaries due to a "very precarious position". Independent Media quickly backtracked and paid staff their full salaries before month-end, saying it had received additional funding from Sekunjalo.
"What is clear, is that we need to restructure our business to align our cost structures to current revenue levels to make our business sustainable. This is a journey that we will walk together," said Hove.
