NEWSPAPERS ARE ALIVE AND WELL IN KZN
No other publication in the country compares to The Witness which has been publishing continuously for one hundred and sixty-five years. The oldest newspaper in the country, the paper was started in 1846 soon after the city became a British garrison town, and has published uninterrupted through the Anglo-Boer War, the Zulu Wars and two World Wars. The Witness is a must-read for anyone living and working in the capital of KZN.
A coastal edition of the Witness, featuring news from Amanzimtoti to Port Edward appears on weekdays, in addition to the usual Witness mix of local, national and international news. The Witness can be found at newsagents throughout the province as far afield as Newcastle, Ladysmith, Dundee, Vryheid, Kokstad, Matatiele, and up and down the coast from Mtubatuba to Port Edward.
The Weekend Witness is a more relaxed weekend read for the whole family and is distributed throughout the Province. This popular edition consists of news, sport, leisure, personal finance, TV and property sections and sells around throughout the province on Saturdays.Also printed and distributed throughout KZN, from the Pietermaritzburg plant, are the Daily Sun, Mail & Guardian, City Press, UmAfrika, Ilanga and Soccer Laduuma.
Community Papers
The Maritzburg Fever along with three editions of Echo, Central, Edendale and Hammersdale, serve the greater Pietermaritzburg region on a weekly basis, along with the Village Talk in Howick and the Greytown Gazette.
Twelve other Fever titles now cover the coastal areas of Richards Bay, the greater Durban area, Amanzimtoti, Port Shepstone, as well as southern KZN, Mthatha and East London. Four Eastern Express titles distributed in Durban, have a combined distribution of 125 000, the bulk of which goes into Phoenix and Chatsworth. These along with the Stanger and Coastal weeklies saturate the predominantly Indian areas of the greater Durban region.
Coming out of the same stable also, is newcomer the Polokwane Observer, a sold community paper distributed in Polokwane and Seshego with a print order currently of 10 000.
Zulu Language Newspapers
The Natal Witness also prints, manages and distributes Ilanga, South Africa's oldest and by far the biggest selling Zulu-language newspaper. Ilanga with an average sale of 139 000 copies in the first quarter of this year, is highly regarded by readers as the mouth-piece of the Zulu nation. Ilanga's Sunday paper, Ilanga Lange Sonto, the first vernacular Sunday in the country, sells a very respectable 87 000 copies every week.
The Natal Witness also owns the second oldest Zulu-language tabloid. UmAfrika sells around 18 000 copies every Friday.