{"id":78584,"date":"2015-01-29T09:56:24","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T07:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=78584"},"modified":"2015-01-29T11:25:15","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T09:25:15","slug":"government-spends-r10-million-on-the-new-age-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/78584\/government-spends-r10-million-on-the-new-age-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"Government spends R10 million on The New Age advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reply to a\u00a0parliamentary question has revealed that the\u00a0Department of Communications spent over R10 million on advertising in The New Age this past financial year.<\/p>\n

The DA, which put the question to the department, said the amount was “skewed” compared to what was spent on other local newspapers.<\/p>\n

“This accounts for 11.2% of government adspend across 248 publications.\u00a0A comparison with the biggest newspapers shows just how skewed government adspend is towards the Gupta-owned newspaper, despite its low readership,” said the DA.<\/p>\n

According to the parliamentary reply and AMPS research quoted by the DA, the department spent the following on advertising in local newspapers in the 2013-2014 financial year.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Publication<\/strong><\/td>\nRedearship<\/strong><\/td>\nAdspend<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The New Age<\/td>\n153,000<\/td>\nR10,199,988<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sowetan<\/td>\n1,674,000<\/td>\nR10,434,476<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Daily Sun<\/td>\n5,351,000<\/td>\nR7,888,753<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Isolezwe<\/td>\n1,176,000<\/td>\nR1,246,257<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Further compared to publications with similar readerships, The New Age received a disproportionately high chunk of the department’s advertising budget, said the DA.<\/p>\n

“[This]\u00a0underscores just how much of an \u2018outlier\u2019 the newspaper is in terms of government adspend.”<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Publication<\/strong><\/td>\nRedearship<\/strong><\/td>\nAdspend<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The New Age<\/td>\n153,000<\/td>\nR10,199,988<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pretoria News<\/td>\n125,000<\/td>\nR868,994<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Herald<\/td>\n196,000<\/td>\nR534,306<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Mercury<\/td>\n180,000<\/td>\nR509,298<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

“There can be no rational explanation for government spending R10,2 million on advertisements in a newspaper with 153,000 readers, but just half a million rand on a newspaper with 180 000 readers,” said the DA.<\/p>\n

“The only explanation for the disproportionate adspend on The New Age is that it is owned by the politically-connected Gupta family, and because its editorial stance is unashamedly pro-Zuma.”<\/p>\n

The New Age has previously come under scrutiny for what it makes off its business breakfasts<\/a>, as well as subscription deals with Prasa<\/a>\u00a0and adspend by Telkom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More media news<\/h3>\n

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Netflix confirmed for South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications has spent a “skewed” amount on adspend in the Gupta-owned newspaper, says the DA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[25,2061,1598,8211,3526],"class_list":["post-78584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-active","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-department-of-communication","tag-faith-muthambi","tag-the-new-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78584"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78596,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78584\/revisions\/78596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}