“Entering this new chapter for the Sun, we are in a strong position thanks to the many learnings we bring from the paid-for era”, chief executive Rebekah Brooks told staff in an email.
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Managing editor of Mail Online in the U.S., Keith Poole, is reportedly being lined up to join the title to help strengthen the team during the transition away from the paywall.
Brooks delivered the paywall strategy in August 2013 before she left News United Kingdom amid the phone-hacking scandal.
As of November 1, Sun+ customers will no longer be billed for reading The Sun’s digital content and we will be transitioning to a largely free world by the end of the month.
It was the only one of the tabloids to charge for online content.
The Sun, whose print version is Britain’s best-selling daily, has been making more and more content available for free on its website in recent months. The move is understood to be influenced by the Sun’s platform partnerships with Apple News and its desire to increasingly have its articles shared in Facebook Instant Articles.
“The biggest recent success story has been Dream Team”. In the interests of accurate reporting, your correspondent visited said website and can confirm that, at the time of writing, you still have to hand over your hard-earned beer tokens to see something you can easily get with 10 seconds spent on Google image search.
The Sun, the United Kingdom newspaper that in most countries would be considered a health hazard, may pull down its website paywall, according to the Guardian.
The Sun had a daily average of 1,108,861 unique browsers in September, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures. We know more about our readers than ever before.
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The move represents a major challenge to the players vying to succeed with the free digital ad model – a few might argue the U-turn is a vindication for those opposed to paywalls – particularly given the challenges that have emerged for United Kingdom national newspapers.
