How do you build a serious newsroom in one of the hardest media environments in the world?

In this episode we speak with the Daily Maverick's Styli Charalambous about building a public-interest journalism organization from a five-person startup into a 100+ person newsroom — while navigating political corruption, market collapse, and constant financial pressure.

The conversation explores what it takes to sustain investigative journalism in South Africa, where democratic institutions were under threat and media economics were rapidly deteriorating. We discuss how Daily Maverick survived political turbulence, industry disruption, and repeated funding crises — and why purpose, strategy, and community became central to their survival.

Topics include:

• Growing a newsroom during political and economic instability
• Why journalism should be treated as a public good
• How the Gupta Leaks changed South African politics
• Building a voluntary membership model at scale
• Designing journalism for real-world impact
• Fighting misinformation in a broken information system
• Why paywalls don’t work for public-interest reporting
• The limits of “better business models” in weak markets
• Why market context matters more than management skill

We also explore how Daily Maverick built a powerful reader community that contributes expertise, resources, and long-term support — creating a sustainable alternative to traditional media funding.

Subscribe to the podcast or our YT channel for biweekly episodes. If you enjoy please leave a rating/comment/share with a friend, it helps us out big time!

Publishers Stopped Being Media Businesses But Most Still Haven’t Noticed.
What business are the in now? 

Listen to find out.

Ep. 2 of Around the Bloc, with James Hewes, publishing and media veteran.

In this episode we discuss:
– Why publishers don’t really run “media businesses” any more – they run audience businesses, and what breaks when you ignore that
– How smaller, specialist niche media brands can out-earn much bigger players by owning a niche audience instead of chasing every news cycle
– Why “print is dead” became lazy shorthand for avoiding hard product, pricing, and positioning decisions
– What the Washington Post and Jeff Bezos story tells us about media strategy, newsroom culture, and business model risk
– Why The Sun still can’t sell in Liverpool decades after Hillsborough, and what happens when a community decides your brand is finished
– How AI, copyright, neighbouring rights, and slow enforcement are reshaping the relationship between publishers, platforms, and tech companies

This is the kind of conversation I have biweekly.
From the weird to the wonderful with the experts.

James is Former FIPP CEO, ex-BBC Magazines, Gulf News, The Art Newspaper, now running Soho Consulting. 

James has spent decades inside the media machine, working on subscription growth, audience strategy, magazine publishing, newspaper publishing, B2B media, and digital transformation for publishers.
https://www.sohoconsult.co.uk/

Subscribe for full episodes every other Friday.

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What is a subscriber actually worth — and how should publishers measure it?

Joined by Abby Spooner from Atlas Consulting, we break down lifetime value (LTV) in simple terms and explain why understanding subscriber value is critical for digital publishers, news organisations, and media businesses building sustainable subscription models.

We also explore how LTV and the LTV:CAC ratio help publishers make smarter decisions about acquisition, retention, pricing, and audience growth — without drowning in jargon or vanity metrics.

We discuss:

• What lifetime value (LTV) really means for subscription businesses
• How the LTV:CAC ratio works in plain English
• Why acquisition and retention teams often pull in opposite directions
• How publishers can focus on subscriber quality, not just volume
• The difference between price and value in media subscriptions
• Why understanding your audience matters more than copying competitors

Subscribe to the podcast or our YT channel for biweekly episodes. If you enjoy please leave a rating/comment/share with a friend, it helps us out big time!