“In a moment, like most businesses globally, with lockdown our business was dramatically affected, and changed forever,” says Anton Marsh, managing director of Now Media, publishers of Freight News. Due to the pending lockdown the Freight & Trading Weekly(FTW) title, which had been produced in print for 47 years, could no longer continue to be produced in the same format due to lockdown. With such a big impact the business had to implement big changes early on. “Looking back we have been fortunate in this regard as Covid has lasted much longer than anticipated and we would not have been able to sustain the business in its previous structure,” says Marsh. The recognisable FTW publication was split into new titles as early as April 2020 – a move only considered in March 2020. Freight News (freightnews.co.za) was launched, amalgamating the strong original news stories from FTW with FTW Online – FTW’s sister online daily news service. The popular features supplements have been retained. They are however now distributed digitally on a weekly basis and collated into a printed compendium which is sent to our FTW readers. Says Marsh: “We have found this new formula to be well received by readers and advertisers. So much so that we are rolling out similar models to other titles servicing other industries in the group. The success of the transition has been due, in no small measure, to the hard work and dedication of the Freight News staff who have been simply incredible. I would also like to thank advertisers for their support. While we believe we deliver a great product and value, without our advertising partners there wouldn’t be a title to service the industry and keep this niche news f lowing.”
