Huisgenoot

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Huisgenoot (Afrikaans for House Companion) is a weekly Afrikaans language general interest family magazine. It has the highest circulation figures of any South African magazine and is followed by sister magazine YOU, its English language version. A third magazine, Drum, is directed at the black market. Esmaré Weideman is the editor of all three magazines, which have a combined circulation of almost one million copies a week. It is estimated that more than two million people read Huisgenoot weekly.

The magazine is published by Media24, a subsidiary company of Naspers publishing group and its content includes a mix of real-life drama, glamour, fashion and consumer affairs articles as well as recipes, crossword puzzles, home projects, motoring news and sport. It also has a children's section and at least one short story a week.

[edit] History

The magazine was founded as the monthly De Huisgenoot in 1916. There were two reasons behind its founding - to financially support the newspaper De Burger (The Citizen), which was the political mouthpiece of the Cape National Party, as well as to provide the Afrikaner population with inspiration, information and entertainment.

While the cause of Afrikaner nationalism dominated the content of the magazine for decades, the editors of the magazine gradually had to make concessions to popular taste. Covers featuring Afrikaner heroes and politicians were replaced by ones featuring female film stars in the 1950s and 1960s. The Dutch-sounding De Huisgenoot title was also changed to the more Afrikaans Die Huisgenoot and in 1977 the name was further simplified to Huisgenoot.

By the late 1970s the culture and mores of the Afrikaner population had begun to diverge from earlier generations, leading to a drastic decline in the magazine's readership and finances. By 1978 the magazine was in serious trouble and a new editor, Niel Hammann, was appointed. He took Huisgenoot in a more populist and profit-driven direction and the popularity and sales of the magazine subsequently surged - from 140,000 to 500,000 magazines per week.

The popularity of Huisgenoot has continued almost unabated since then, making the magazine and its English sister publication YOU the most successful magazines in South Africa.