Illustrative image: Business editor Tim Cohen gets down to the tough task of understanding the complicated Mauritian economy at Flic-en-Flac beach on the west coast; Below: Average gross income levels compared.
Photos: Supplied; Teodor Kuduschiev/Unsplash 
Like quite a few other people currently working for Daily Maverick, we thought our journalist race was run only to discover a fresh lease of life. I joined Daily Maverick after reaching the compulsory retirement age imposed by my previous employer, then Times Media and what is now the Arena group. I thought I would spend a few years helping my old mate Branko Brkic establish a business section for his then-small but feisty website.
Then five years passed. How did that happen? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that it has been a whirlwind. I hope I’m not speaking out of turn here, but when I joined, Daily Maverick had a readership of around a million “users” a month. That made it perhaps the sixth or seventh largest news site in South Africa. The readership of Business Day was slightly higher at the time.
Today, Daily Maverick’s readership base vacillates between eight and 13 million “users” a month depending on the significance and grippy-ness of the newsflow. (A “user” is one of the main industry metrics for website audience, and designates a unique visitor in a 24 hour period). The point is that in an ocean of declining media institutions, Daily Maverick really managed something spectacular: growth. Other publications have grown their online circulation too, but nothing even close to this increase.
I’m so delighted to have been part of that heady ride, so proud of my colleagues for their contributions, and so impressed at Maverick’s fabulous leadership for engineering this momentum. We turned what was essentially a political blog into one of the three or four essential media outlets in the country. Extraordinary.
You might have read that the publication has had to go the opposite direction recently, joining practically every other media institution in the country if not the world in reducing staff. This is a setback no doubt; some good people are leaving the organisation. But I do not doubt that the setback is temporary; the momentum the organisation has built will see it through. There are easily enough great journalists staying on to see the job get done.
From a business perspective, there are a few questions here. What caused this growth in readership? I think that’s easy: varied, interesting, absorbing journalism undergirded by a fidelity to truth. Great scoops, wild commentary, fair comment, and straight-up informative journalism. We were also a little bit lucky — for one thing, Covid-19 ensured people were glued to their screens and information sources; competitive publications weakened over the period.
But Maverick’s decision to remain free-to-read and not become a paywalled site underpinned the growth. Maverick’s revenue model offering “membership” in exchange for a donation has been innovative and a huge success. But sadly, as it turns out, not a huge enough success. Still, give it time.
The more difficult question is why was the increase in circulation not followed by a like increase in income? Around 35 000 people make small (and not-so-small) contributions to Maverick as part of their membership. It amazes me to compare that number of the roughly 20 million people who pay double or triple the amount to subscribe to DSTV. Do South Africans value the news so much less than they value live sport and Hollywood reruns? Apparently so, but that is their loss.
I sincerely hope that over time South Africans will again see the value of great journalism in all its glory. I, for one, am not giving up - they are going to have to carry me out of here. I will continue writing my After the Bell columns for Daily Maverick along with my colleagues who write the days I do not. I will work for other publications as well and I’m also launching my own personal blog at timcohen.co.za so please do support that if you can - I promise some exclusive content. I am not making this up.
It only remains for me to thank three groups of people and I wish I could name them individually, but they are honestly too many to specify.
First, the readers of Daily Maverick; you are an odd, wonderful lot, and you deserve continuous applause. Thank you, especially to readers who let me know what they thought of my sound (or not-so-sound) reasoning; I enjoyed our exchanges.
Second, my colleagues on Daily Maverick, one and all, but mostly, if you will excuse me, my Business Maverick colleagues, present and past, my ambassadors of Kwan. Your new business editor is Neesa Moodley, who is delightful and dedicated and I have no doubt she will carry the torch high. And best of luck too to the other torchbearers - our new Editor in Chief, the estimable Jillian Green and her new deputy Anso Thom. As Viv Richards used to say, “confront ‘em Curtly”.
And third, former editor-in-chief Branko Brkic. In the end, it all goes without saying, even when you say it.
Good investing,
Tim Cohen
Editor at Large