SA media ownership 'too narrow'

South Africa's big four newspaper groups have come in for a bashing during parliamentary hearings into media diversity, which began yesterday.

Independent Newspapers, Media24, Caxton and Avusa, which publishes The Times, were accused of using strong-arm tactics to force smaller community newspapers out of business.

The Competition Commission's Hardin Ratshisusu told parliament's portfolio committee on communications that he would refer a case of alleged "predatory pricing" against Media24 to the Competition Tribunal.

Predatory pricing referred to cases in which big newspapers set advertising prices below cost so they could lure advertisers away from smaller newspapers, he said.

"After the exit of that [smaller] player, the dominant [player] would increase its prices to recoup all the losses that were made," said Ratshisusu.

The four groups control 88% of all newspaper circulation in the country.

"At this moment, we do not see signs of effective competition in printing, procurement of advertising and distribution," Ratshisusu said.

Rhodes University journalism professor Jane Duncan said the committee should consider enacting laws similar to those applied in France and Sweden that prevent a news group from owning more than 30% of the circulation, and giving subsidies to small newspapers.

"The South African market is veering dangerously towards excessively high levels of concentration and the dominance of Media24 should be of particular concern.

"We should be concerned for democratic reasons. Concentration can lead to the prioritisation of views of the elite minority, and the dominance of commercial interests over public interest," she said.

Another problem was that the "media gives too much space to middle-class and politically centrist viewpoints", Duncan said.

DA MP Niekie van den Bergh said smaller newspapers were like fish and chips shops that would survive if people wanted to buy what they were selling.

Mike Robertson, MD of Avusa Media, said the company was a tiny player in the community newspaper market, and that this was only in the Eastern Cape.

"We have a small number of community papers in the Eastern Cape apart from our two main titles, Daily Dispatch and The Herald. We are certainly not guilty of predatory pricing either," he said.