The Daily Telegraph signed up nearly 500 new subscribers every day in August

The Daily Telegraph, which is known as The Telegraph online, signed up more than 15,300 paying subscribers in August, the equivalent of nearly 500 each day on average. Press Gazette understands the figure is by some way the highest achieved by the newsbrand since it started charging for access to content. It set up a metered paywall in 2013 but moved to a ‘premium content’ model in 2016, putting select articles out of reach to non-subscribers. The Telegraph’s politics channel generated more than 2,000 subscriptions in August, the highest of any other channel, with 1,000 sign-ups from sport and 750 from general news, it is understood. A large number of the newspaper’s political news and opinion pieces are behind its paywall.

Subscriptions generated via social media and Google search also climbed significantly year-on-year in August, it is understood, with the latter accounting for more than 5,000 sign-ups for the month. The Telegraph has kept its total number of paying subscribers a closely guarded secret, but Nick Hugh, chief executive of Telegraph Media Group, has set a target of 1m paying subscribers by the end of 2023.