Nation.Africa hits 50k paid subscribers in three months
What you need to know:
- Three months after the introduction of its metered paywall, the Nation Media Group on Friday announced a new milestone, as digital subscription rose to more than 52,000 subscribers.
When nation.africa announced its digital subscription model in February, it was considered a bold move by many industry experts.
The question was, would people really be willing to spend money on digital content that they were used to getting for free? As it turns out, the answer was a resounding yes.
Three months after the introduction of its metered paywall, the Nation Media Group on Friday announced a new milestone, as digital subscription rose to more than 52,000 subscribers.
Group Editorial Director Mr Mutuma Mathiu said the company thought it would reach the milestone in 12 months but it was done within three months. “This goes to show that the work we have done is confirmation of our professionalism and I want to congratulate our staff and partners for their fantastic work,” he said.
On his part, NMG CEO Mr Stephen Waithaka Gitagama echoed Mr Mutua’s sentiments that the company was expecting to be here by the end of the year saying that today was a great day and a great achievement.
Pressure
“When we started this day, there was pressure for the team to deliver. It has been only three months since we launched the paywall, there has been a lot of work, a lot of learning. We have tested, learned and made improvements,” he said.
Mr Gatagama said that the people who matter were the audience. “The readers, those are our customers, those are the people we are talking to and are rewarding us from what we have done. And that is why we are proud of achieving more than 50,000 subscribers, way ahead of our schedule.”
The latest achievement comes just days after Nation.Africa, the flagship news and content website of NMG, won two awards at the prestigious International Forum (iF) Design Award 2021, also referred to in popular culture as “the Oscars of Design”.
The unique design of www.nation.africa, which went live in September 2020, won under the Communication category while its launch campaign video bagged the award in the Best Campaign Video category.
An independent group of 98 design experts judged 9,509 entries from about 3,693 participants from 52 nations. The Nation campaign video garnered 309 points while the Nation.Africa brand identity entry garnered 311 points. The average score among the winners this year was 269.
