The 2026 edition of RANKED, a widely referenced report on digital news media performance in Africa, will be unveiled on April 23 in Lagos, with early insights pointing to a structural shift in how media value is defined across the continent.
Published by SquirrelPR and organised by Squirrel Media Technologies in partnership with KT Communication, the report has increasingly become a decision-making tool for media buyers, communications professionals and newsroom leaders seeking to understand visibility and performance in a fragmented digital environment.
This year’s rankings, which cover 13 countries across Anglophone and Francophone Africa, arrive at a time when traditional audience metrics are losing their dominance. A central finding is a broad-based decline in readership traffic across all markets tracked, reflecting changing consumption habits, platform diversification and the growing role of social and off-platform distribution.
However, the report reframes this decline. Rather than signalling contraction, it points to a redistribution of attention and a reweighting of what defines media strength. Influence, measured through credibility, authority and audience trust-is rising even as raw traffic volumes fall.
This shift has direct implications for advertisers, PR practitioners and publishers. For brands, it suggests that reach alone is no longer a sufficient proxy for impact. For media organisations, it underscores the need to build deeper audience relationships and institutional authority, rather than optimise solely for clicks.
The 2026 rankings expand beyond traffic data to include metrics such as domain authority, audience composition (local versus foreign traffic), and sector-specific growth trends. This broader framework offers a more granular view of where influence is being concentrated and how different outlets are positioning within their markets.
For communications professionals, the relevance of the ranking lies in its ability to recalibrate engagement strategies. As influence becomes more measurable than mere visibility, media selection, message placement and partnership decisions are likely to shift towards platforms with stronger credibility signals, even if their headline traffic numbers are lower.
James Ezechukwu, co-founder of SquirrelPR, said the evolution of the report reflects wider industry changes, noting that practitioners must move beyond conventional metrics and adopt more data-driven approaches to media engagement.
Beyond the data, the launch event is positioned as a convergence point for industry stakeholders. It will feature an expert-led panel session with leading voices across media and corporate communications, including Muyiwa Matuluka, chief executive officer of Techpoint Africa; Rasheed Bolarinwa, head of communications at Polaris Bank; Damilola Bright-Ukwenga, communications manager at ScribeTribe Africa; and Olufemi Ajasa, online editor at Vanguard Newspaper, among others. The discussion will centre on the theme, ‘The Reality of Digital Media Performance in Africa: Navigating the Future Through Data and Tools,’ with a focus on how measurement frameworks are reshaping strategy and outcomes.
Keni Akintoye, founder and lead strategist at KT Communication, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address, bringing perspective from brand management, digital media and marketing communications.
Another highlight of the event will be the unveiling of new PR and communications solutions developed by Squirrel Media Technologies, designed to equip practitioners with more effective tools for navigating an increasingly complex and data-driven media environment.
As the African media landscape becomes more competitive and fragmented, the RANKED 2026 report positions itself less as a scoreboard of traffic and more as a map of influence, offering stakeholders a clearer lens into where attention is shifting and how value is being created in the digital news economy.