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Johannesburg - The impending closure of the South African Press Association (Sapa) has spurred on new entrants in the newswire space as Times Media has announced plans to launch its own service at the end of March.
The company is set to join two other new newswire services: News24Wire from Media24’s digital division 24.com and the African News Agency, which is backed by Sekunjalo chairperson Iqbal Survé and the Pan African Business Forum's executive chairperson Ladislas Agbesi.
Last month, the non-profit South African Press Association (Sapa) announced it would send out its last story at midnight on March 31 2015 after it first started operations in 1938. Sapa’s assets are planned to be disposed of while the company will be liquidated.
“Times Media will launch a newswire service by the end of March in a bid to serve its online products and newspapers as well as to serve the growing commercial demand for credible, independent and accurate news feeds,” said Times Media in a statement.
“The newswire, which will be sold externally under the brand Rand Daily Mail News Wire or RDM News Wire, will deliver by-the-minute coverage of breaking news from seven bureaus as well as from hubs covering parliament, sport, local government, business and the courts. The company’s print newsrooms will also provide copy for the newswire,” said Times Media.
Times Media further said that its wire service will be managed by former Sunday Times editor Ray Hartley and edited by Juliette Saunders and Dominic Mahlangu
Competition
Last week, Media24’s digital division 24.com announced plans to launch a newswire and daily diary service called News24Wire from 1 April.
News24Wire will consist of a 16-member national reporting team being built by News24 editor-in-chief Andrew Trench and will be a resource for the country’s press.
The News24Wire team will be led by Sapa’s news editor Fienie Grobler with bureaus set up in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban and Bloemfontein, the company announced.
Content from News24Wire will be free to use for all digital publications, and for syndication by print, broadcast, radio and corporate partners.
Meanwhile, the formation of the The African News Agency was announced in February this year.
The African News Agency will offer news currently offered by Sapa as well as by other syndicated services, namely breaking news, politics, economics and business, sport, crime and courts, and lifestyle. It also plans to issue daily diaries.
The African News Agency has an initial investment of R233m from backers. In addition, 60% of its content is planned to focus on sub-Saharan Africa and 40% on North Africa.
Fin24 is part of 24.com which is set to launch News24Wire.
