Nasionale Pers

Nasionale Pers or Die Nasionale Pers''' ("The National Press") was

=Origins: De Nationale Pers=

Founded on 12 May 1915 as De Nationale Pers, with the aim of advancing the cause of the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner people, it initially only published a newspaper, Die Burger, but soon expanded and in 1916 published its first magazine Die Huisgenoot. Dr. D.F. Malan, a former minister in the conservative Dutch Reformed Church and supporter of J.B.M. Hertzog's National Party was persuaded to become editor and thus the paper and the company became a main supporter of both Hertzog, the Nationalist movement and the apartheid cause.

In 1918 the company took a further step towards expansion when it founded its lucrative book publishing operations as Die Burger Boekhandel, which would become the Nasionale Pers Boekhandel (NPB) - also listed over the years as Nasboek, Nasionale Boekhandel, NB Uitgewers, etc.

=Naspers=

Nasionale Pers had itself listed on JSE on 12 September 1994 and in 1998 the group's name was formally changed to Naspers.

In January 2000, Naspers merged its existing private education activities with that of another leading South African private education business to form Educor Holdings Limited - one of the leading private education providers in South Africa. During the same year, Naspers also re-organised and branded its print media business as its Media24 division.

=Media24=

=M-Net and MultiChoice=

In 1985, Nasionale Pers and a number of other South African media companies formed an electronic pay-television media business, M-Net, which was listed on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) in 1990. In 1993, M-Net was divided into two companies - M-Net itself became a pure pay-television station while the company's subscriber management, signal distribution and cellular telephone activities were formed into a new company called MultiChoice Limited (later renamed MIH Holdings Limited).In 1997, MIH Ltd. created an internet service provider, M-Web Holdings, which also runs M-Web Blogspace, a popular South African blogging platform.

= Sources =

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naspers

http://www.naspers.com/index.php

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