Oops. Wrong end.

I’m happy to say I’m now World Cup befok, staring down the bright yellow orb of my newly-acquired vuvuzela. I can’t wait for the upwelling of national pride, the festivities and the heart-stopping penalty shoot-outs. And, media houses, take note, though I normally have absolutely no interest in soccer or sport in general, I’m ready to start consuming stories on the 2010 FIFA World Cup teams, coaches and the expectations of the various participating nations.
Now if only I could lay my hands on some coverage.

Where is it all? Hidden on the sports pages of my daily newspaper? I seldom go there but, quite frankly, I would have expected shameless reams of world cup sports copy on the news and features pages by now. There is, after all, only 22 days to go.

Nevertheless, preparations by media houses across the land to cover the world cup have been on the go for a while – some started the planning as much as a year ago – and many a hope has been pinned on a turn-up in advertising revenue on the back of the event, especially after marketing budgets were slashed last year amid the recession.

But as early as March this year, there were signs that the tournament might not be an early Christmas and that many local advertisers were holding back on spending during the event as they feared being lost amid all the footie clutter.

Virginia Hollis, joint MD of The MediaShop, one of South Africa’s biggest media-planning firms, says that, besides increased expenditure from official sponsors such as MTN and Coca-Cola, she hasn’t seen the expected upsurge in advertising. In the first three months of this year, there was an increase in television advertising -and also in radio – but this came off a low base because adspend was so decimated last year. Hollis expects advertising to pick up in August, when advertisers feel more confident about reaching SA audiences without having to cut through the soccer clutter… TO READ THE FULL COLUMN, “THE WORD ON GRUBSTREET”, CLICK HERE TO GO TO BIZCOMMUNITY.

* This was published first on Bizcommunity, on May 19 2010.

And that 2.1 million users figure from Nielsen released by Online Publishers Association (OPA) excludes the popular value-add zones such as Women24, Sport24 and Health24. Counting international users, News24 had 2.87 million unique users in April. The experts point that part of News24′s growth is organic as the internet audience in South Africa is on the upswing but let’s give credit where it’s due: These are good figures and puts News24 streets ahead of its competitors.

Nielsen’s figures puts the Independent Newspapers-owned IOL News and Avusa’s Times Live at 1.51 million 1.14 million and unique users respectively. (…Continues below graph, which was created from Nielsen Online’s April 2010 figures courtesy of the OPA)

Click on graphic to enlarge

On the value-add zones, JP Farinha, the CEO of Naspers’s 24.com digital division under which News24 falls, told Bizcommunity: “In terms of numbers both Sport24 and Fin24 are pretty big with between 400 000 and 500 000 uniques each. Health24 is next and then we have Women24, Wheels24, Weather, Food24, Channel24, Careers24, Parent24 and Gotravel24. Time spent on site is highest on Careers24, Blueworld, Games and our email product because of the types of activity. Our blogging platform, Letterdash, gets substantial audience but is spread across all our brands so can’t be counted as a single destination but its users also tend to spend more time on site.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MY FULL COLUMN, “THE WORD ON GRUBSTREET”, AT BIZCOMMUNITY, WHERE YOU CAN READ MORE OF JP FARINHA’S COMMENTS.

1. The Dispatch has quite a tale today. One of East London’s former mayors (the town has had quite a few in the past few years) chased after and karate-chopped a man, who allegedly stabbed a petrol attendant.  The suspect was arrested but the petrol attendant died as a friend of the former mayor was unable to get a call through to the emergency services. He flagged down a passing ambulance but they could not stop to help immediately as they were taking a woman to an old age home and returned too late. Lots of strands to this story that say a lot about our society. Read the story here.

2.  Trevor Manuel  is consulting lawyers over claims made by Allan Boesak in a book to be published soon, reports IOL and News24.  Boesak names Manuel’s family among other sturggle activists as benefiting from donor funds channelled through his Foundation for Justice and Peace. Read the IOL story here.

3.  There’s a moerse row brewing as Nelson Mandela’s grandson is denying that he has sold the funeral rights for Madiba’s funeral to the SABC for R3-million. He made his denial to both The Times and the Dispatch after  Sunday World broke the story. The Sunday World story says Mandla ignored repeated requests for comment. Read it here and read today’s story at The Times here.

4. And while we’re on the Sunday papers, I do feel the need to point out that the Sunday Times splash this week about young girls in rural Eastern cape being forced into marraige  is a story that appeared in the Daily Dispatch a few months back. Honestly, guys. Did you not think the Dispatch readers would notice?  Here’s the Sunday Times story and click here to read the Dispatch one from March.

5. News24 has a new look. Check it out but I must mention their perculiar practise of the past few weeks of leading with international stories. There’s a lot of exciting stuff happening right in SA, guys — web users can get international news from a host of foreign sites at the click of a button.

Most of the parties’ Facebook pages are silent and the IEC’s website is not loading, possibly because of the the number of hits on it.

It’s hard to beat the immediacy of TV and radio on this one but News24 seems to have the best online package of the big online media houses, with a cool little map of SA showing the results as they come in (the Western Cape is going to the DA, the rest are sticking with the ANC). Click here to go there.

My favourite story of the past two days, however, goes to the Daily Dispatch, which ran a reader competition of people’s memories of the 1994 election. I actually got a lump in my thoat when I read this one, about a reader’s memory of his grandfather voting for the first time.

The Dispatch’s election page is also much more lively than most, with an video interviews of young people talking about the election. Each video is embedded into a Google interactive map. Nice! Click here to interract.

A half  hour of noodling around with South african URLs on Stimator’s calculator produced these results — and some  are mighty surprising. Of the big four news websites — IOL, News24, the Mail & Guardian and The Times — IOL came tops and the M&G second but News24 and The Times were beaten by the Daily Dispatch’s website (in East London). Here are the estimations done on 24 March:

1. IOL: $532 887

2. M&G: $312 877

3. Dispatch: $253 641

4. News24: $206 369

5. The Times: $187 485

To compare the Dispatch to another two fine South African newspaper which keep their websites separate from their parent companies such as News24 and The Times, Business Day was valued at $48 842 and The Witness in Maritzburg at $30 675. MoneyWeb, which is only online and  on radio, came in at $66 140.

Of the big SA aggregators, Amatomu wins hands down. Here are the stats:

1. Amatomu: $323 604

2. Muti: $8 970

3. Afrigator: $6027

A dip into South Africa’s blogs showed The Hub, which covers all things cycling and is the top blog on Amatomu , was valued at a rather small  $1 981. The number two blog on Amatomu, Mark Keohane’s rugby blog, was valued much higher — at  $20 478. This may have something to do with the fact that Keohane’s blog has been around for quite a long time.

Another blog that has been around for quite a while, 2OceansVibe, which is Cape Tonian Seth Rotherham’s offbeat take on living in the Mother City, was valued at $13 293. Pretty good for a one-man operation.

Hayibo, a spoof news site that is run by novelist and journalist Tom Eaton and has been going for one year is valued at  $7 458. Zoopy, South Africa’s answer to YouTube, came in at $23 245.

Yours truly was well pleased. Grub Street, was valued at $136, which is not bad for a pip squeak who’s only been going for three weeks (and it’s certainly far more than I put in — about $136 more).

[poll id="8"]

2. Schabir Shaik, Jacob Zuma’s former financial adviser who was jailed in 2005 for fraud and corruption, made an offer of R10-million for a swanky plek in Morningside in Durban one week before he was paroled. It also happens to be a stone’s throw away from the official Durban resident of the state president. Looks like Shaik was pretty sure (10 million bucks worth!) that he had a “get out of jail free” card. You have to subscribe to the M&G to see the story online. Click here to do that and you get one week free.

3. Meanwhile, back at the ranch Zuma says South Africans are being big meanies about Shaik’s health, waiting for him to die now that we’ve been told by Correctional Services that he’s in the final stages of terminal illness.

“You can’t say so many officials, all the way up to the minister, were all corrupt and dishonest and wanted to smuggle a prisoner out, it can’t be,” Zuma said.

Famous last words? Read the story on News24 here.

4. There has been a 56% rise in the number of missing police dockets over the past year, it emerged in Parliament. In 2005/6, 382 were lost or stolen; 427 in 2007/8 and in 2008/9 668 dockets went up in a puff of smoke. Ever wondered how easy it is get to a police docket vanished but you’re persecuted by traffic and library fines? You’re not working the system properly, people.

5. And maybe , just maybe, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for hacks (and readers) as there is a change of guard at the Evil Empire. Tony O’Reilly is handing over the reins of the Independent newspaper group to his son. They’re denying this will means a sell-off papers but we can only hope. In South Africa the Irishman owns both Cape Town daily broadsheets, both Durban daily broadhseets, The Star in Joburg and the Pretoria News. Most South African hacks have watched in dismay as these papers have fallen in quality in the past 15 years as cost cutting rules the day. Read Business Report’s story here.

2. Manufacturing output, considered by economists as one of the key indicators of real economic performance fell a record 11% in January compared with the same period the year before. Mining output also fell 11%, which means South Africa’s trade deficit is up at a record R17.4-billion. It’s could well mean a drop in interest rates soon. For a quick little analysis of the situation read MoneyWeb’s Alec Hogg’s radio interview with Cees Bruggemans, chief economist of First National Bank on SAfm.

3. News24 says that about 220 South African towns are now withholding their municipal taxes due to poor service delivery, according to the National Taxpayers Union. Read the story here. Good on yer, people. I have oft wondered where the R1200 a month I pay in rates goes in the Buffalo City area and have concluded a large amount is being frittered away or simply not being spent as the parties — and factions within parties — wage war against each other in an endless power battle.

4. The Constitutional Court has ruled that South Africans living overseas can vote in the next election. If you are one, go to this story at The Times to find out how.

5.

A renegade stripper on a seduction spree, a Ducati motorcycle seized by crack detective Piet Byleveld and a spy game between two strip-club kings on Facebook.

Yislaaik. Now, that’s an intro and it’s not even a complete sentence (from Alex Eliseev at The Star. He’s a very smart young hack so I bet he wrote it rather than the news editor). Eliseev has been covering the Teazers court case in the South Gauteng High Court. Need I say more — read it here.

2. A Wits University researcher says last year’s xenophobic riots were not spontaneous mob events but planned by South Africans wishing to set themselves up as community leaders in the townships and involving businessman wishing to route out competitions from foreign owners of businesses such as spazas. Speaking at a Joburg conference about the findings of a report on the xenophobic attacks, the researcher even indentified a specific hostel in Alexandria where the attacks were planned but said that police did not — and still do not — wish to “interfere”. Read this very interesting story here on News24.

3. Still on xenophobia, the Daily Dispatch has a good follow-up on its recent investigation into the lives of Somalis in East London. In the Transkei town of Port St Johns, the locals have in fact welcomed and integrated with Ethiopians refugees. Check out this except from the story. How shocking is it that this is the exception to the rule:

Take Sunday night in Mthumbane Location as an example. Yalew Tessema’s spaza shop buzzed with customers and children playing outside as the full moon shone over them.

He was not bothered about the time as he continued to serve customers behind his open counter, often striking up small talk in broken IsiXhosa.

“There is nothing to be scared of in this place,” he said. “I can close at whatever time of the night if it is really busy. The people here are friendly. We can even sleep without locking our doors.”

Refugee saga: a story of hope

4. Shooting for a Hollywood film based on a book by two South African photographers (they can write?) will start in Joburg soon. Ryan Phillippe, the former husband of actress Reese Witherspoon, heads the cast of the film based on the book, The Bang Bang Club, by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva on their experiences covering political violence in South Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Read The Times story here.

5. And gloomier than gloom, business confidence is at its lowest in 10 years in South Africa. The index is calculated from an average of confidence levels in five sectors — manufacturing, retail, wholesale, the motor trade and construction. Read the Business Day story here.

2. President Kgalema Motlanthe said in a question to him at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange that he will consider an investigation into the medical parole from prison of Schabir Shaik, the former financial adviser of ANC president Jacob Zuma.

3. Still on Mr Shaik, a cardiologist at one of the country’s academic hospitals told The Times that Shaik’s condition was “nothing exceptional” after analysing a report about his health signed by the state cardiologist, Professor DP Naidoo. Naidoo told the Sunday Times he had discharged Shaik from hospital four months before he got parole. The doctor later said he was misquoted. Read the full story here, which also gives an account of the interview Sunday times journalist Megan Power did with Naidoo.

4. News24 says that an affidavit by a dead policeman that implicates the presidency, National Intelligence Agency and the National Police Commissioner’s Office in an alleged conspiracy was handed in to the Bloemfontein High Court by the defence for IT consultant Mzwendoda Kunene at his murder trial. Kunene, who is accused of murdering Ballito estate agent Lynne Hume in 2007, was one of three accused in the hoax e-mail case that implicated ANC members in a conspiracy against Jacob Zuma. Hume’s murder was allegedly the result of Kunene planning to make her as a defence witness in the e-mail case. Read the full story here.

5. The Pretoria High Court is expected to decided before the end of the week if Clive Derby-Lewis, who masterminded the murder of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani in 1993, can get parole after serving 15 years of his life term.

2. There’s a big storm brewing over the Sunday Times story about Schabir Shaik, Jacob Zuma’s former financial adviser, who got medical parole last week because he’s supposed to be in the final stages of terminal illness. Now the doctor who told the Sunday Times that he had discharged Shaik from hospital four months ago because he was well enough to leave is saying he was misquoted while the health department has complied a report for Health Minister Barbara Hogan on how he was allowed to stay in a private ward in a state hospital for four months at taxpayers’ expense.

3. The percentage of mortgage applications turned down by banks leapt to 61% in February, compared with 41% in the same period last year, reports News24. This means, says property economist Erwin Rode, that you need to get saving for a deposit if you want to buy a house. Best you buy a caravan and park it your parent’s yard if you’re a first-time home buyer and give up those dreams of a holiday home if you have bought a house. Read the full story here.

4. And more gloom on the property front. Business Day reports that house prices are expected to fall more this year before recovering early next year. The price index from one of the big South African mortgage origination firms shows that prices fell a further 0.7% last month compared with a year ago. The average house price was R827553. Read the full story here.

5. Two-thirds of the 62 firefighters at Cape Town International Airport are “poorly trained” and have little or no general firefighting experience, says IOL which has laid its hands on internal airport documents. So no sneaking off for smokes in the toilet at Cape Town airport, people! And stay clear of the area when the puff-happy Germans hit town for the soccer World Cup next year. Read the full story here.