Is it time for small news outlets to replace big media houses?

My connection with Die Burger started almost 30 years ago when delivering it before school. Until recently, my parents were subscribers to the daily print edition, which was still remarkable since my parents stay in Saldanha. I was also raised in a household convinced that judgement day will only happen after Riaan Crywagen bid us a good night at the end of the 19:00 news.

So it was with great disappointment to read yesterday about the further demise of printed media in South Africa. Granted, I've felt for some time printed news served its purpose, but Media24 did not capitalised on its dominant position to grab the local online news market fully, even with the Netwerk24 offering. (I read between 5-8 similar international news sites daily, there is room for improvement in creating engaging content, or I'm not part of the target audience...).

I wrote an article last year about my thoughts on the future of engineer consultancies and this might also be relevant to news outlets. The generation of content needs to change and keep up with the changing and challenging times.

While there are some independent news providers in South Africa, there should be room for independent online streaming content providers as well. Given the bombshells provided by investigative journalists in past 2 years, journalism is still alive in South Africa.

I've seen a wave of webinar offerings by companies with a range of commentators, maybe due to the pandemic, people are more receptive to online content. On a daily basis, I'm spoilt for choice which to join.

Granted, I'm not an expert in journalism and only on the consumer end of it, but I stumbled on ticker earlier this year when I was in Melbourne and I'm still fascinated by it. I missed a few of my tram stops while watching shows...

Clearly this project is done with passion by Ahron Young, from building the reporting desks and studio to presenting. I would say he has the same vested interest in the success of it as any other business owner.

Understandably no news is "free" and the financial and revenue-generating aspects of such business need to be understood, but the small ticker studio in Richmond is way more efficient in generating content than the behemoth of Auckland Park.

I'm sure such a model would be feasible for news outlets to become "small news businesses" and should be explored further.

Maybe it's time to venture into such an offering, it seems there is an audience for content with kids being the distracting in it...