Format Tabloid Website www.son.co.za | Publisher Naspers | |
Die Son (Afrikaans: "The Sun") is an Afrikaans-language South African tabloid reporting sensational news essentially after the model of British tabloids. It is the South African newspaper with the largest increase in readership in recent years. In the Western Cape province, it appears as a daily; in other provinces, it is a weekly paper. The editorial seat is in Cape Town.
The publishing house Naspers began to publish Die Son in 2003, after the large success of the English-language tabloid The Daily Sun in Western Cape, first under the title Kaapse Son ("Cape Sun"). The sales figures rose so rapidly that they decided in the same year to expand the sales to the whole of South Africa. In the first half-year (2005) the print run of the daily paper was estimated at 50 000; that on Fridays for the whole of South Africa averaged 220 000 copies. The other Afrikaans-language dailies (also from Naspers), like Die Burger, did not suffer from the dramatic growth of Die Son.
The English-language edition and the Afrikaans edition share most of the content (both news and advertisement), except minor differences such as that the English does not have the Page 3 girl feature. The current, and founding, national editor is Ingo Capraro, previously of Die Burger, another Naspers publication.