Something odd is happening with the readership of South African news websites; it's dropping like a stone. Why? Is that globally unusual? Will it come back? Who, or what, is responsible?
I think most people would agree that the past few months have been the newsiest in recent history. US President Donald Trump has taken aim at South Africa, creating a diplomatic rumpus. The SA budget has been delayed. The Government of National Unity is in a constant tizzy. Members of the underworld mafia are shooting each other in Johannesburg restaurants. There are even floods.
On the international front, it's been even more hectic, with the aforementioned Trump Esq causing hyper-craziness and whiplash everywhere. The funniest reflection on Trump's Tariff-y-ing War was Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who was asked about his foreign minister Mélanie Joly's description of the situation as a “psycho-drama”. “How would you characterise the situation”, he was asked. “Thursday”, was his deadpan reply.
We in the press feign indifference to periods of grand happenings and societal stress, notionally riding somewhat above it all, but of course, they are our lifeblood. It doesn’t always lead if it bleeds ... but it does help. ​Over the past decade, the global consumption of online news has, of course, been increasing, driven by the proliferation of digital platforms. But it seems as though people are just getting a bit sick of the constant presence of the news in their lives.
Look at this graph, produced in June last year. Even the huge number of elections in 2024 failed to get people excited. This is a YouGov poll across 12 big countries where interest in the news fell from 66% in 2018 to 49% in 2024. Political news followed a similar downward trend, with figures falling from 45% to 30% during the same period.
The reason for the longer-term decline comes down to two things: social media channels that don’t rely so much on “the news” have distracted people (think Instagram, YouTube and TikTok). Of course, these social media sites also offer news, but generally, as well all know, people use Instagram to show off their perfect lives; people use YouTube for a deep dive on 'The History of Forks"; and people use TikTok because they opened it to check a music video and three hours later they know how to build a house single-handedly, remix Beethoven, and diagnose a fictional illness.
We are deep into the era of the algorithm which favours short-form, video-based content. Reading the news seems like an effort by comparison, particularly among the young.
The other issue is equally obvious: there is a lot of active news avoidance going on. This is from the same YouGov Poll. (Think ... I.Just.Can't.)
So how is this all panning out in South Africa, and are any of the news sites managing to hold up? As it happens, not so good and not really. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) keeps a rundown of internet users by product and publisher. I’ve extracted this list of the top twenty news websites, listed in order on the left-hand side and then compared those January figures to January last year, and May the year before, which is as far back as they go.
The numbers are remarkably similar to the international figures, with a big decline in some of the most prominent websites, most notably News24. (These are daily active user numbers averaged over the month: a daily active user is a individual who visits the site at least once in a 24 hour period. I think its a superior measure to the more popular "pageviews", which is much higher and favours free sites over paywalled sites.)
Part of News24’s decline is self-inflicted because the umbrella sports offering, SNL, is also constituted by web offerings of the former print publications, the Daily Sun, Soccer Laduma, Kick Off, Drum and True Love, which are also Naspers products. And since SNL (Soccer, News and Lifestyle) has been doing well, presumably it has eaten a bit of News24's visitor flow.
The other big winner has been Daily Investor, which has clearly been taking chunks out of Business Day. The figures are somewhat distorted because some sites have paywalls, like BusinessLive and some do not, like the Broad Media products, Daily Investor, BusinessTech, MyBroadband, and TopAuto. Hence, understandably, lots of casual readers of business news are drifting toward the free options.
But if seven of the eight top news sites are down by an average of 25%, Houston, you have a problem.
How much of a problem? Well, judging by the international comparison, not that much of a problem, because the same pressures are happening locally that are happening all over the world, although they seem to have arisen in SA much faster and more recently.
The situation is not really as gloomy as it seems from these numbers. First, January is traditionally a weak month, so comparing May 2023 to January 2025 exacerbates the decline. Also, taking an individual month can be distorting, too, because the numbers bounce around a lot - a single month can be unrepresentative.
Take a look at these simplified, individualised graphs. Daily Maverick’s decline particularly is less extreme than the numbers above suggest. I should say, the short period distorts how much growth there has been in the industry over a longer term. When I joined Daily Maverick in 2020, we were experiencing about a million active daily users a month. Maverick is now doing about eight times that, which is still very impressive, even though its down on its highpoint a few years ago.
I think news managers are also at fault because they (once again) haven’t moved with the times fast enough; all the news sites need a much bigger YouTube and Instagram presence. Maverick is doing some interesting stuff with video on Instagram and BizNews is doing well on YouTube, leveraging editor Alec Hogg’s skill as a long-time radio broadcaster. Ironically, the institution which has made the most progress here is the SABC, presumably because it has a long history of visual broadcasting. On the other hand, given the size of the organisation, its internet offerings are atrocious and it no longer even registers in the top 20.
How are the news sites that are doing well achieving their gains? Partly just by focusing very hard on catchy stories, being fast on the draw, remaining lightly staffed, not overthinking it, and not to mention straight-up, good, reliable news reporting. Oh, and staying free-to-read. Is that a long-term sustainable business plan? Very likely, even at the very low rates of advertising payback on news websites.
Are South African news organisations satisfying the social requirements of keeping the population of the country accurately informed? This is a much harder question. Honesty, I don’t think SA does too badly. The decline in the size of newsrooms means some institutions and topics are poorly covered: courts particularly, municipal affairs, some parts of business, and the arts. Managers need to keep up, and news providers really need to focus on the news-avoidance issue, starting by publishing more stories that are fun, and revealing, and educative, rather than a constant barrage of diatribes - woke and otherwise. Even as a commentator myself, I think there is too much commentary in the mix (which by the way is comparatively cheap and fast to produce). A little more old-fashioned, straight up news reporting should be there too.
But this is a question really for you: I’m on the provision side; you are on the consumer side. Let us know in the comments. 💥
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