Empowerment on hold in print media.

(From Business Day (South Africa))

Byline: Ron Derby

THE MEDIA/ Empowerment on hold in print media CYRIL Ramaphosa brokered a landmark deal with Anglo American in 1996, to buy a 35% stake in Johnnic Holdings through the National Empowerment Consortium. The deal promised much for the country's private media landscape, and particularly for black ownership and empowerment. At its core, it offered black shareholders a worthwhile stake in a company that owned the largest, and arguably most influential, newspaper in the country, the Sunday Times.

But little of that early promise has materialised, and it has certainly failed to spread into a wider black holding in the listed media industry.

Of the major media groups listed on the local bourse, radio powers Kagiso Media and Primedia are the only empowered operations. Some of the country's major media groups have not, unlike the mining and financial-services sectors, had the business incentive to undertake …