“The announcement is especially exciting for the local media industry and is without doubt an important indicator of the growth of digital publishing,” says Gustav Goosen, CEO of The SpaceStation. “We are excited to be adding a globally recognised brand like The Huffington Post to our network. We anticipate that this partnership will bring a new audience into our network, in essence adding to our base of 28 million global unique browsers rather than duplicating it.”
HuffPost South Africa is due to go live on 21 November and is the 17th edition and the first sub-Saharan African edition for the company, with a mission to provide a platform for local voices and communities, while also delivering a mix of local and international news, politics, lifestyle and entertainment for South Africans, by South Africans. The South African team is headed up by General Manager Charlene Beukes, with the newsroom under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Verashni Pillay and Head of Commercial Lee-Anne Lawrence.
Says Verashni: “The Huffington Post South Africa is uniquely positioned to fill an important gap in the South African market. The combination of intelligent lifestyle news with hard news that has a take is perfectly suited to where many South Africans find themselves right now: interested in everything and anything, and wanting to know, more than ever, what it means for them. And all this beautifully presented on a digital platform that has been tried and tested with audiences across the world.”
Adds Gustav: “The offering on HuffPost South Africa will be very similar to the diversity of our offering across the other 24.com platforms, including cross-platform elements like native advertising, rich media, video, takeovers and interactive campaigns. We will work closely with the team at HuffPost SA to facilitate their native campaigns for clients.”
The Huffington Post already has a large audience in South Africa, with nearly three quarters of a million unique visitors per month, according to comScore.
