If you look at paid online news in South Africa, the numbers are sobering. The country’s biggest subscription-led news site, News24, passed 100,000 subscribers in 2024. That’s a milestone, yes—but it’s a tiny number compared with the newspaper circulations of decades past. For a country of more than 65 million people, it’s a drop in the ocean.
Even free-access news websites don’t have massive subscriber bases. News24 led the pack again with about 2.87 million unique users (including international readers) in April 2025. IOL News pulled in around 1.5 million, and TimesLIVE about 1.1 million. These are respectable figures, but still small when you think about how South Africans consume news today.
The truth is, most people are getting their news for free—and not always from traditional news sites. Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, and YouTube are the real newsrooms for millions. A 2024–2025 survey found:
• Facebook leads the way, with 84% of social news consumers using it.
• TikTok is rising fast, with 47% using it for news.
• WhatsApp follows closely at 46%.
• YouTube reaches 45%.
• X (formerly Twitter) still holds a niche at 30%, especially for breaking news.
These platforms are convenient, instant, and algorithm-driven. They feed users bite-sized updates, short videos, memes, and “takes” on the news—content that’s easy to skim and share, even if it’s not always read carefully or remembered accurately.
For publishers, this shift is brutal. Subscription numbers grow slowly, advertising revenue on free sites is tight, and audiences are distracted and fragmented. What publishers really want isn’t just “subscribers.” They want readers. People willing to return regularly, pay attention, and engage deeply. But that’s the hardest thing to capture in a world of endless scrolls and infinite feeds.
Traditional brands like News24, TimesLIVE, and the SABC still matter. They deliver journalism in multiple languages across multiple platforms. But the reality is clear: South Africans have grown used to free news, and they’re unlikely to change. For publishers, it’s survival in a world where the biggest competitor is free content, everywhere, all the time.
