SAAN announces its decision to close the Rand Daily Mail

The Rand Daily Mail newspaper was closed in April 1985. The South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN) made the announcement on 15 March 1985. SAAN, the company that owned the Rand Daily Mail, the Sunday Times and The Daily Express newspapers, allocated costs to each of its newspapers accordingly. However, it discovered that it had grossly miscalculated the costs allocated to the Rand Daily Mail. This forced the company to close down the paper. The Rand Daily Mail was a liberal newspaper that operated at the height of apartheid. It was the first newspaper to address the issues of Black people at the time. Its demise was caused partly by its strategy to increase sales. By the time it closed the company’s overdraft was R10 million, a month later, the company was forced to sell their building and presses when the overdraft soared to R40 million in an effort to remain solvent. The paper’s closure affected the Newspaper industry nationwide.