Hayibo shuts down for good
South African parody and satirical news site, Hayibo.com, has announced that it will be closing its doors – and this time for good.
This is the second time the well-known site has called it quits, and for the same reason.
In September 2010, Hayibo said it would shut down due to a lack of funding – however an 11th-hour bailout by specialist publishing house, Cape Media, kept the site functioning and had continued to do so until September 2012.
In September, Hayibo ventured away from the purse strings of Cape Media in an attempt to function on its own.
“Cape Media were a fantastic support to us – they backed us when nobody else would,” Hayibo founder, Tom Eaton told BusinessTech at the time. “But we want to see if Hayibo can exist on ad sales alone.”
As a part of its new business strategy, Hayibo hired the services of digital and social media service provider, Creative Spark Interactive, to handle ad sales and consult on ways to grow the site.
However, after only a few months on its own, Hayibo’s managing team has decided to fold.
Permanent closure
“It’s been a very tough decision, but the facts are these: we just don’t have enough money or writers to keep Hayibo meeting the standards you’ve come to expect,” the team wrote on the company website
“Our advertising team has been working incredibly hard, but corporate South Africa is still a little too suspicious of satire to reach for its checkbook quickly and regularly,” they said.
“We’re deeply grateful to the ad sales team, who invested so wholeheartedly in Hayibo.”
The team went on to explain that, although they made a comeback before – this would not be happening again.
“When we closed down back in August 2010, we were hoping for a miracle. But this time we won’t be restarting, even if a sugar-daddy appears.”
“Our demographic is apparently pure gold (you, dear readers, are among the most educated and discerning people in the land), but we are hamstrung by a serious shortage of writers.”
“Given more time and money we might have tried to develop a writing team and run Hayibo as a full-time operation, but alas our pockets and our talent pool have now run dry. The three writers who’ve kept breaking the news since August are now pretty much broken themselves.”
The three writers behind the website were revealed to be Tom Eaton, Gretchen van der Byl, and Rebecca Davis, with a support team of Anthony Pascoe and Steve Porter.
Hayibo will remain active until Friday 14 December 2012, and will remain online for a “few weeks”. The team is also working on a once-off print project, planned for the new year.
In closing, the Hayibo team signed off with one more message:
“Ladies and gentlemen, friends and South Africans…This has been the news. Broken into lots of little pieces. Goedgaan, hamba kahle, and goodbye.”
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