The news that Media24, South Africa’s biggest media group, is planning to close 5 of its print publications is unfortunately far from surprising. Most journalism outlets have been experiencing declines for the past 20 years and they’ve been in free fall for the past 10.

As disturbing as this decline is, it’s hard to look at the circulation numbers of the newspapers in question without wondering how it’s taken so long for this decision to be made. Soccer Laduma has declined from a total circulation of just over 317,000 to 40,000. Daily Sun has plummeted from 283,000 to barely over 10,000.

Media24 told staff on 18 June that it was looking at closing the print publications of Soccer Laduma, Daily Sun, Rapport, City Press and Beeld.

The publishing group said the closures would put 400 jobs at risk.