[Breaking news] Wednesday is D-Day for Media24

Media24 will be holding a press conference at 1pm Wednesday, 3 October 2007, after the results of the forensic audit conducted on all of its 60-plus titles was presented to a special sitting of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) Board today. The damage control ‘spin’ has already started, with the Media24 invite to all industry media presented as “a special open information session” to “provide feedback on the findings of the independent forensic audit of its magazine division”.

The invite was all nicely formatted and designed – I thought I was being invited to a party, not a press conference for one of the biggest scandals to rock the media world in South Africa in a long time. The only thing not specified was a dress code. Although I would assume it might be sackcloth for the Media24 execs.

Hopefully the spin will be minimised and we will be told exactly the ‘how and why’ circulation figures could be overstated by as much as 50% in the woman’s magazine division, including the new international title In Style, also affecting stalwarts such as FairLady and Sarie. If it ended there, the story might have been a lot less shocking. These things happen, even in big corporations. And it seemed as if the ABC process worked and all agree that Media24 has been open and transparent with clients, promising compensation and keeping the agencies updated.

But the news that Touchline (owned by Media24 and publishers of some of the top titles in the industry, including Men’s Health, Shape and Sports Illustrated – all international licence agreements) might also be implicated sent the rumour mill spinning out of control, particularly after the alleged untimely resignation of Touchline MD Marc Blachowitz and two of his senior management team.

The past week of the self-imposed news blackout by Media24 and the ABC has seen media directors weigh in for their clients who placed advertising with the affected titles – all indications are that they will be playing hardball and have already sent Media24 offers back for ‘revision’; the Magazine Publishers Association of SA (MPASA) must start thinking about damage control with the annual PICA magazine awards for magazine publishing and journalism only a month or so away; and today rumours started doing the rounds in the industry that another big media group is preparing to sue Media24 for loss of potential revenue and market share over the circulation debacle. We’ll keep you posted on that one!

Whether any more Media24 executives will fall on their sword or even if Media24 will remain in the Pica Awards, will hopefully be answered at the press conference tomorrow.