Argus Newspapers is owned by Independent Newspapers PLC, based in Great Britain and Ireland. Argus publishes The Star (24 hour daily in Johannesburg), Cape Times and Argus (morning and evening dailies in Cape Town); Natal Mercury and Daily News (morning and evening dailies in Durban); Diamond Fields Advertiser (morning daily in Kimberley); Pretoria News (24-hour daily in Pretoria); Sunday Tribune (Sunday in Durban), and several weeklies. It is also controlling shareholder in The Newspaper Printing Company (which prints Argus and TML papers in Johannesburg) and Allied Publishing (which distributes Argus and TML papers in throughout the country). TML has shares in both companies.
Until its recent sale to Independent Newspapers PLC, Argus Newspapers, was ultimately owned by the mining house Anglo American, owner of a vast number of industrial and commercial enterprises in the country.
Nasionale Pers, owned by its directors, but with a large shareholding by Servgro, in turn owned by Sanlam, publish Beeld (morning daily in Johannesburg); Die Burger (morning daily in Cape Town); Die Volksblad (evening daily) in Bloemfontein; City Press (Sunday in Johannesburg); Finasies en Tekniek (weekly) in Johannesburg and numerous weeklies and magazines. Nasionale Pers is also the biggest single producer and distributer of school textbooks in the country.
Perskor, owned by Dagbreek Trust, Rembrandt tobacco and liquor giant and Nasionale Pers, publishes The Citizen (morning daily in Johannesburg); Transvaler (evening daily in Pretoria) and numerous weeklies and monthly newspapers and magazines. Perskor is also involved in book publishing.
Another company to enter the field recently is New Afrika Investements, which acquired the controlling shares of the Sowetan from Argus Newspapers. Argus, however, retains a large stake in the company as well as management, printing and distribution contracts which will run for several years. Prosper Afrika has also just acquired the New Nation, which it is continuing to publish as a weekly.
Presently, the television subscriber channel M-NET is the only media organisation
in South Africa which has major cross-media ownership across the political and
language spectrums; Nasionale Pers and Perskor, Times Media Limited and the independently-owned
newspapers Natal Witness and the Daily Dispatch own most of the shares. Independent
Newspapers did not buy Argus's portion of the shares when it acquired Argus, presumably
because it believed that the profitability of the newspapers in its stable are
no longer contingent on the M-NET shares. M-NET will therefore present an obstacle
to the Independent Broadcasting Authority in determining what cross-media regulation,
if any, is needed.
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