NDM: Telegraph to include a paywall

Telegraph starting a paywall subscription?

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/nov/03/telegraph-paywall-initiative-is-an-interesting-strategic-shift

Summary:

The Telegraph has announced that it will be placing a paywall on its 'premium' content, which is seen to be an interesting shift. It will involve only 15% of the output that the Telegraph produces, but they want to send out a message that its journalism is worth paying for. Although there is a large quantity of its content out for free, they believe that audiences should pay for a subscription to receive the premium content. The editor for the paper states they they didn't know very much about their audiences and therefore, this new idea they are implementing will enable that to happen. 

Statistics:

• 15% extra output produced by the paper
• 85% of the news will be free
• 825 of its readers access their site through mobile devices
• Over a year ago, those figures was slightly higher than 50%

Own view:

I believe this is the step in the right direction. This is because I believe that journalists who do the hard work of discovering scandals and bringing wrong-does to justice should be paid for their work.Allowing news be put out for free is not the right way to go, as institutions are firing their journalists as they cannot pay them due to not enough revenue being received. By placing a paywall on a platform that is largely dominated by free content, will allow subscriptions to be put in place, ensuring that journalists are being paid for their work. Furthermore, the Telegraph did something clever. They have been constantly been giving their premium content for free, and to its core audience who are loyal to the company are aware of this section. By placing a paywall it turns the product in to a necessity to this audience. They are so used to receiving this premium content for free, they they demand to get it and so they are likely to sign up for a paid subscription.