Communiqué 71: Can newsletters become a viable media business in Africa?

Publications like Africa Confidential, Tech Safari, Notadeepdive, and Frontier Fintech show the promise and pitfalls of turning newsletters into media businesses.

Key points

📌 Personality and trust are the real assets: Creative entrepreneurs must understand that audiences subscribe to people, not just content. A strong, consistent editorial voice builds trust, and that trust is what unlocks opportunities.

📌 Domain expertise attracts the big bucks: Once a writer establishes authority in a sector, they become valuable as a commentator who can monetize their expertise through consulting services, events, and strategic brand partnerships.

📌 The Africa Confidential blueprint: Paid subscriptions remain a challenge in Africa, where cultural resistance to paywalls and years of free content have made monetization difficult. However, Africa Confidential is a rare success, charging premium rates for deep, exclusive reporting largely aimed at a global audience with higher purchasing power.

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1. A riveting second act

On May 16, 2025, African business analysis newsletter Notadeepdive announced a sponsorship deal with Credit Direct, a digital finance company that reported over 12 billion naira ($7.5 million) in pre-tax profit last year. For an independent Nigerian newsletter, this kind of partnership is highly unlikely—a rare alignment of the right audience, a distinct editorial voice, and now commercial backing.

Notadeepdive, known for its sharp takes on Nigerian tech and business, had gone quiet for over two years while its founder, Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega, led TechCabal’s newsroom. In March this year, after leaving TechCabal, Olowogboyega returned to publishing the newsletter.

Notadeepdive’s announcement got us thinking about the prospects of building a sustainable newsletter business in Africa.

This question of sustainability looms large over the continent’s growing newsletter ecosystem. In recent years, journalists, analysts, creators, and even media publications have embraced newsletters to bypass traditional media constraints and connect directly with readers.

As dire as it was for the planet, the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that followed opened up new opportunities for creativity. Substack was taking off globally, and writers, stuck at home with abundant time, started experimenting with newsletters, drawn by the promise of creative control. Alongside Notadeepdive, other African newsletters like Afridigest, Afrobeats Intelligence, Frontier Fintech, West Africa Weekly, and Communiqué took off. They were not the first, but they showed what was possible.

But while Substack success stories have been abundant in the West, the African context lags seriously. Smaller addressable audiences and limited advertiser appetite make the economics tricky.

Still, people are trying. From niche tech digests and political analysis to entertainment recaps and cultural commentary, newsletters have become a small but vibrant part of Africa’s media landscape. The big question is whether they can become sustainable businesses that rival the old guard. Can they become viable options for journalists and writers who have grown weary of the status quo and desire deeper, unique outcomes?

2. The personality premium

A simple but powerful idea is at the heart of the newsletter boom: people don’t subscribe to topics, they subscribe to personalities. Whether it’s tech, culture, or finance, a newsletter’s appeal often comes down to voice, perspective, and trust. Readers want to feel like they know the person behind the byline. And that connection becomes even more valuable in an age of increasing AI-generated content.

As AI continues to automate information packaging at scale, the only reason to keep reading a newsletter is because you care who’s behind it, and you trust them not to bullshit you. It’s why a newsletter like Fintech Frontier resonates. Readers aren’t just looking for updates; they’re tuning in for analysis, tone, and worldview.