Sustainability and corporate social investment

In addition to its empowerment initiative, Welkom Yizani, Media24 is committed to uplifting the people in the communities in which it operates. It recognises its impact on the environment and the importance of effectively managing occupational health and safety risks, as well as developing its employees.

Media24 retained its top-level BEE accreditation and is now rated as a value-added supplier, allowing customers to claim 125% of spend as BEE spend. More details of the company’s sustainability initiatives are contained in the governance and sustainability section of this annual report and on its website (www.media24.co.za).

Brazil

MIH Holdings has a 30% interest in Abril, the leading magazine publisher in Brazil.

Owing to the economic climate, advertisers postponed or cancelled in the first half of the year. Activities recovered encouragingly in the second half of the year. However, overall it was a challenging year for magazine advertising and the market decreased by an estimated 8,5%, while Abril saw a decrease of slightly less than 7%.

During the year Abril maintained a 52% share of the magazine subscription market and increased its share of single-copy sales to 37,4%.

Despite the tough operating conditions, Abril successfully contained costs, closed down a few projects and performed reasonably well. During the year Abril acquired MTV, a channel that broadcasts a variety of popular music and reality television shows and the Civita family acquired Atica & Scipioni a school book publishing business from Abril.

China

The group has stakes in:

• Xin’an Media Corporation, a newspaper publisher in the fast-growing city Anhui, in the Hebei province
• the leading sports publisher in China, Titan Media, and
• BMC, which operates a leading Beijing newspaper, the Beijing Youth Daily.

The economic climate affected these businesses to varying degrees, but progress was encouraging.