Digital Economist clocks three years, readership exploded into the millions
The Economist in its digital format celebrated its third anniversary at the beginning of December.
Three years ago, the editor, Daniel Steinmann announced to the Economist staff that the paper Economist was discontinued, all staff retrenched, and that the premises will be sold. At the same time, the Marketing Manager and co-owner, Desèré Lundon-Muller proposed that a digital future was the way to retain the Economist brand value.
An enormous effort was required over the ensuing three years to prove the concept and to ensure a viable future for digital publishing in Namibia. In this regard the Economist is the trailblazer. This milestone was celebrated by the Economist staff, having grown in the meantime to seven, at a special function last week Wednesday.
With seven permanent staff members and a few interns helping out, these three years have been a slow but progressive journey for the Economist team.
People have asked Steinmann how he and his team do it, and he often replies by saying, “There are no set ingredients, you just wake up every day and do the things that need to be done, and at the end of the day you will be amazed at what you have done and achieved.”
From substantial losses, mostly due to escalating printing costs, the digital Economist completed its so-called J-curve earlier this year, first reaching break-even and then operating profitably since May this year.
The journey has been hard but worth it and at the end of the day, the team has one goal in common, to make the Economist the best business newspaper in the country.
As always, the Economist enjoys wide popularity as a specialist business website and in the local market it is firmly placed as the leading public source of business intelligence, focussed on leading business events daily.
The Economist Newspaper printed its last paper copy on 25 November 2016. The newspaper traces its roots to the SWA Ekonoom that was first printed in December 1986. It became the Namibia Economist in February 1991.
