South Africa’s popular satirical site has shut shop, citing dismal advertising revenues and a fall off in syndication deals. As readers mourn the loss of bitingly brilliant content, pioneering parodists say satire is the hardest commercial sell from which to make a living. By MANDY DE WAA.
Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
Last year brought a reckoning for the media, as jobs were eviscerated and advertising revenue evaporated. This decimation in the sector, which accelerated trends already evident for decades, was wrought by the global pandemic to refashion the media of the future.
Print readership plummeted as readers shifted to (free) online. There’s no doubt that the Covid-induced recession in the media will continue to stain it for years to come. These are the findings of a report titled “Thinking globally, acting locally – Reviving and sustaining South African journalism in a post-Covid-19 world” by Dr Harry Dugmore, released by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University.