The Rise and Fall of ThisDay Newspaper : The Significance of Advertising to Its Demise

This study examines the rise and fall of ThisDay newspaper by examining its strategies tobreak into the South African media market. The study places ThisDay in the context ofcertain factors of the political economy of the South African media and examines how thedynamics of advertising contributed to the collapse of the newspaper. By analysingperspectives from Bagdikian (1983) among others, that the success and failure of themedia depends on its success or failure to attract advertising revenue. The study examinesthe specific strategies used by ThisDay’s management to attract advertising as a keysource of revenue to determine how the failure or lack of such strategies could haveplayed a contributory role in the collapse of the newspaper. Among the factors examinedis the further consolidation of ownership in the competing media companies. Theintricacies and complex relationships that existed between the South African media itsowners and advertisers are examined, to determine whether the actions of the competitioncontributed to ThisDay’s failure.The findings of this study show that ThisDay’s entry met what was arguably a major needfor quality news in South Africa’s daily newspaper market; this however, did not preventits closure. It had to grapple with too many challenges, most of them internal. Theunderlying reason for most of the problems management encountered was theunavailability of financial resources to run a paper of ThisDay’s magnitude. However thestrategies that its management adopted as well as the business plan were way off themark. The demise of ThisDay newspaper is a loss to South African journalism in twoaspects; the industry lost a quality newspaper which greatly improved the level of SouthAfrican journalism (the quality of which many now say is in a decline). Secondly, itsfailure will serve as a deterrent to any aspiring entrepreneur who would like to puttogether a quality product, the perception being that quality newspapers are notprofitable. With the demise of ThisDay newspaper and recently the Nova, it seems thatthe South African print media environment has closed its doors to new entrants.