JOHANNESBURG — One year ago, NovaNews.co.za launched with a bold ambition: to transform decades-old community print titles into a thriving, free, and fully connected digital news ecosystem. Today, as the platform celebrates its first anniversary, that ambition has been thoroughly vindicated — by its audiences, its advertisers, and the global journalism community. To add to the celebration, the site is boasting with one million pageviews per month.
“One year ago, we made a promise to South African communities; free, connected, bilingual news, international, national and hyper local stories that belongs to you. Today, with over a million followers, an engagement rate 98% and a Wan-IFRA Silver Award, community voices united under one platform, we can say – we kept it. NovaNews is growing; its providing community journalism, done boldly and done right with the power to change lives and serve our democracy,” said Esmé Smit, Executive Manager of Novus Media.
Launched in July 2025 following Novus Media’s acquisition of 21 community newspaper titles from Media24 in November 2024, NovaNews was built from scratch as a comprehensive hyperlocal digital news network. Its flagship umbrella site, novanews.co.za, connects 21 individual community websites, replacing the traditional section-based publisher model with a geography-led navigation system built around a map-based content architecture — allowing users to move seamlessly from international headlines to province-, town-, and community-level reporting within one connected ecosystem, entirely without a paywall.
“On any given day, a reader on NovaNews can go from a school sports result in Knysna to a national election story — all for free, all in one place. That is what we built, and that is why it works,” said Bettie Giliomee-Rossouw, NovaNews Head of Digital and Editorial Commissioning.
A year of firsts
Twelve months in, NovaNews has delivered a remarkable series of milestones. The platform became the go-to destination for thousands of South African families during matric results season, demonstrating its capacity to serve high-stakes national moments. The Schools Zone and Schools Sports Zone — incorporating the beloved Schools That Rock brand — gave South African schools a dedicated digital home. A Catalogues section opened a new commercial touchpoint for advertisers, and NovaNews began earning programmatic advertising revenue within its first year — clear proof of its commercial viability.
The Rugby Factory, its sports vodcast with Kick Off Rugby Magazine, surpassed 10,000 subscribers in two months and has recorded episodes exceeding 54,000 views.
The platform’s proudest milestone is its Silver Award at the WAN-IFRA 2026 African Digital Media Awards in the Best Emerging News Provider category — a global honour recognising credibility, originality, and public value, awarded in the platform’s very first year.
“Nobody expected a brand-new platform to win a WAN-IFRA award in its first year. We did. But what matters more is that South African communities now have a free, connected digital home that belongs to them,” said Giliomee-Rossouw.
Serving a bilingual audience across its website network, Facebook (1 million+ followers), WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and email newsletters, NovaNews enters its second year with momentum, credibility, and a clear mandate: to ensure no South African community is left without a voice.
