The Telegraph will reportedly announce a new online paywall strategy as early as next month, with full implementation by September of this year, according to Marketing Magazine. By doing so, it will join other similar publications, including The Times and Sunday Times, and The News of the World, who have all adapted such strategies last year with moderate success.
Marketing Magazine are reporting that Telegraph Media Group (TMG) have contacted several digital agencies in relation to installing the appropriate subscription technology needed. The system will be similar to that of the Financial Times’s freemium model, where occasional viewers have access to limited content, and are asked to subscribe if frequenting the site often.
However, a spokesperson for TMG is insisting that no final decision has been made yet,
“Absolutely no decisions have been made on the introduction of a paid-content model. Like all publishers, TMG continually evaluates the developments in the digital sector.”
More and more newspaper are looking towards paywall-based monetization to help combat a mixture of circulation decline and advertising revenue drops. Following the announcement of Google One Pass last week, a service that facilitates such paywalls and which may encourage others to follow, the uptake of said content barriers is only set to increase further.
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