Aimed at LSM 1 - 6 and published by the GCIS, Vuk'uzenzele will soon be audited by the ABC and included in AMPS.
But, what I have found fascinating are the experiences of the people behind the scenes who actually have to handle the distribution of the magazine. Obviously with the bulk of South Africa's population of 47 million falling into the magazine's target market, there is absolutely no way in hell that a million magazines is even close to being enough. In fact, it is very much in the realms of loaves and fishes.
Apparently, in an effort to be fair and ensure that everyone gets their own copy every now and then, the distributors alternate deliveries from one of side of the street to the other.
But, as some not so wide-awake delivery people have found to their detriment, if they happen to deliver to the same side of the street twice in a row, there is hell to pay from those who get missed out. So, very careful note has to made of who got what last time.
So, the question is why not just print more? Well, it's an expensive exercise and subject to fairly severe budget restraints.
Limited ad space
GCIS does not want to inundate the magazine with advertising so, really, there is only limited capacity for revenue generation here and it's fairly likely that what modest space is being made for advertising will get snapped up pretty fast, given that the publishers know exactly who is getting it.
What GCIS does intend doing to make up for the shortfall in the number of copies it can produce is to encourage sharing. The success of which will be reflected in AMPS.
There seems little doubt, given the feedback from the distributors, that Vuk'uzenzele has turned out to be popular among the lower LSMs, in spite of being unashamedly produced by Government.
A recent survey of 3500 readers found that the most requested information was pretty obvious: job creation, improving the lives of the poor, building homes, fighting HIV and AIDS, improving health services, reducing crime, service delivery issues, skills training, fighting corruption and economic opportunities.
All very sensitive topics that GCIS insists will be covered in future issues.
