The New Age is estimated to have pulled in R49m in advertising revenue in the first half of 2012 - putting it in a "top ten" list of ad spend in South Africa's daily newspapers. This emerged from a presentation by Milton Tshabalala, Associate Director, Advertiser solutions at Nielsen (AIS/AdEx) at the launch of Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) results for the 2nd Quarter of 2012.

The daily newspaper, which was launched in late 2010 by the Gupta family, has been able to bring in this degree of revenue despite not being a member of the ABC - which audits and publishes the circulation figures of most other publications in South Africa.

According to the Nielsen data presented by Mr Tshabalala the top ten daily newspapers in terms of ad spend between January and June 2012 were: (1) The Star (Monday to Friday) - R186m; (2) The Sowetan - R96m; (3) Daily Sun (Monday to Wednesday) - R90m; (4) Daily Sun (Thursday to Friday) - R88m; (5) Beeld (Wednesday to Friday) - R80m; (6) Business Day - R79m; (7) Cape Argus (Monday to Friday) - R77m; (8) The Citizen (Monday to Friday) - R73m; (9) the Daily News (Monday to Friday) - R61m; and (10) The New Age - R49m.

Mr Tshabalala says that Nielsen calculates Advertising Expenditure (AdEx) in all media above the line including newspapers and magazines by measuring the space taken up by advertising in specific newspapers against the listed rate cards of those publications, the gross rate card figures. However, this calculation does not take into account any discounts, barter deals or agency commissions negotiated between those publications and advertisers or their media agencies. 

The figures in this "top ten" also list the value of the advertising purchased in the main bodies of those publications on the specific days mentioned. They do not include advertising spend in additional supplements, and so do not represent the total advertising spend in those publications.

When asked by Politicsweb if the Nielsen figures were a fair reflection of how the New Age was doing CEO Nazeem Howa commented "Nielsen's measurement has always been debated due to the basis of calculation. We are certainly of the view that it is a reliable indicator of marketshare and as such we are happy with how it has measured us as the margin of error exists equally for all titles on an annualized basis."

He further noted, "Our achievement comes through the hard work of our dedicated sales team who have had to sell in a hostile environment and have done a more than acceptable job in growing our share. Our approach has been to over deliver on every deal we do and is working for us as the base of clients has broadened significantly.  In the past few weeks we had added Nedbank, Coke and Sasol among others to our base."

The standard rate the New Age charges in its national edition is R349.66 per column centimetre (p.c.c.), which is comparable to the R349.66 p.c.c. charged by The Star newspaper for colour advertisements in the main body of the newspaper. According to ABC figures the core circulation of The Star in the 2nd Quarter of 2012 averaged 91 432 copies sold per day.

Given that the New Age is not a member of the ABC Politicsweb asked Mr Howa if it would be possible to give an indication of what the newspaper's current circulation is. Noting that the New Age's rates appear to be similar to The Star's we also asked what particular value the New Age provided to advertisers.

In response Mr Howa commented: "As you may be aware we launched New Age at a time when circulations across the sector were under huge strain. Clearly the models in operation at that time were not going to work for us.  With the help of The Times of India we have adapted and implemented its proven model of publishing which sees us printing 100 000 copies every day and methodology that ensures minimal wastage and maximum eyeballs in our newspaper.  Sold copies therefore are not the primary measure, read copies by the right audience is the key factor. The Times of India is today the world's largest newspaper, growing revenues and circulation in a market showing declines. We are certainly benefitting from their innovations and it is certainly growing our business. In our book every copy counts and it must reach the hands of our target audience."

He added, "Due to the great returns we offer advertisers they keep using our title.  An example of this is Outsurance which has excellent means of measuring response.  Outsurance has recently resigned a commitment with our title which provides proof positive of how well our title works. In terms of points of difference, we go out of our way to overdeliver on our commitment.  As a new title, we also go out of our way to push the envelope, be it through creative advertising solutions, distribution methodologies and content strategies. They are clearly making a difference to our abilities to provide a quality audience to advertisers."

Earlier this month it was reported that Independent News & Media group editor-in-chief Moegsien Williams had been appointed as new editor of The New Age, replacing Ryland Fisher in that position.

The relevant slide presented by Milton Tshabalala of Nielsen to the ABC results presentation on Tuesday:

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