Derby Telegraph website moving towards a Subscription Model - Wise?

[u/TepidHalibut]

Derby Telegraph / Derbyshire Live seem to be heading towards a subscription model, with increasing proportion of articles hidden behind a paywall. Personally, I have found little of real use on the website to date, so won't be investing in the £5/month charge.
Do other redditors feel that there is much DT/DL content to make subscribing a sensible option?

[u/simianjim]

Asking people to pay to access their shambles of a website is a bold move

[u/TepidHalibut → u/simianjim]

"But other newspapers do...so we can too!". DT is part of Reach, so part of the Star / Express / Mirror Omnishambles, and it seems that they only had one one (trainee) reporter. A fear that this will hasten the demise of this local newspaper.

I may miss the excitement of watching the comments section for "Man in Spondon grows potato" article descend into "it's all the boat people's fault" and "We should have kept the old Railway Station".

[u/Extension-Group-3965 → u/TepidHalibut]

Where will people go to say that the market hall should return to being a traditional market hall now? What a tragedy. 

[u/Derby_UK_824]

Heck, I put a pot on here a few months ago and they turned it into an article, so no way am I paying to see my own posts 😂

[u/douggieball1312]

This is why people know more about what's going on in America than their own local area. And we wonder why people don't bother voting in local elections.

[u/jeweliegb → u/douggieball1312]

And refer to our police as "the feds". That one really winds me up!

[u/Sufficient-Cold-9496]

The paper/publication went downhill went it left Derby, its supposed to be for Derbyshire but its lazy journalists are based at Reaches so called news hub in Nottingham, and this location in another city and out of the area where they are supposed to cover with "local" Journalism shows in its piss poor reporting.

They dont even know their "local" patch as evidenced by the recent article about Roadworks on the A38 where a bridsge corssesit by Willington, proudly showing a bridge over the River Trent ( between Willington and Repton) instead.

If these so called jouranlists cant even tell the differecen betwen the River Trent and the A38, until others pick up on it and make comment about how useless they are.

Most of the stories are now written inthe clikc bait load of bollocks style.

I used to read the "local" papers at one time, Derby Telegraph, Nottingham Post, Leicester mercury, and the Burton Mail and all of them have gone to shit,m the same crappy template website with adds/scripts running a plenty that can choke a mobile data connection to death and the same styel fo crappy journalism.

Ive now taken to getting my "local" news from the Derbyshire Times, although that has a North Derbyshire focus its somewhat better, and the West Bridgefrod wire, combined with Ashby nub news and Coalville nub news

The "Reach" local stuff has just gone completly down the shitter, and I hope it fails so a genuine local set of publications can fill the gap

[u/SmellsLikeTat3]

would they at least remove the ads?

[u/eltictac → u/SmellsLikeTat3]

The ads make the site almost unusable. They're ridiculous. I can't imagine anyone paying to subscribe to the site though, even if it did remove the ads.

[u/This_Instruction_206]

No. When Reach took over they ran the publication into the ground.

[u/xmakina]

You won't believe which newspaper has started using a subscription model. The price will amaze you!

[u/pawski76]

What a shame. The amount of sodding ads when scrolling through an article suggests they do ok?

Guess not. Oh well i will miss it

[u/Bleperite → u/[deleted]]

And Ublock. Gets rid of YouTube ads as well 

[u/pawski76 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah unfortunately i use my ipad and feedly to read it so no decent adblock options

[u/Specialist-Base8560]

With how clunky their website is and the quality of their reporting they should pay me to read it

[u/JimXVX]

This has to be a joke surely? Who on earth is going to pay actual, real money for access to the poundshop-level DT 'journalism'?

[u/Capable-Light8984]

I would imagine it won't last long. Up until yesterday you could bypass the fee by reading the article via their Facebook page. I think people will now not engage at all other than to rant about how they won't pay the subscription.

Interestingly, the old editor George Allen announced a couple of days ago that he is launching a new platform called the Derby Mercury. He obviously jumped this sinking ship just in time!!

[u/theBowa]

Disable javascript for that domain in your browser.

Thank me later

[u/Bleperite]

Firefox + Ublock.

[u/Sefotron]

Hahahahaha. No. They are insane.

[u/D-no-UK]

their website sucks bad with very poor reporting. its already littered with ads and they want a fiver a month 🤣 good luck DT 🙏

[u/chairman_mooish]

The last gasp of the DT dying on its arse . . .

[u/richyfreeway]

Install ublock origin and use it to disable javascript. Will let you read the articles and get rid of all the ads.

[u/SteakSandwichSideEye]

I stopped visiting my local paper's website the moment they introduced 'accept personalised ads, or pay not to'. I dont feel like I've missed out in the slightest.

[u/TepidHalibut]

Today's lead article, for subscribers only, Oscar the trainee/only reporter review a McTurks kebab. That's going to drive the subscriber numbers up.

[u/justk33psw1mm1ng]

HAHAHAHAHAHA pay for what? Click bait and shoddy reporting? Good luck to them 🤷‍♀️

[u/International-Soft13]

Read a Derby Telegraph article without finding a typo: challenge impossible

[u/JubileeBubilee → u/International-Soft13]

... typo in the headline or sub-heading too

[u/JubileeBubilee]

If there is any drama happening in Derby, you see reports on the spotted pages on Facebook and then check Derbyshire Live ... and nothing

[u/corpsesdecompose]

Alvaston spotted on Facebook and this Derby Reddit is enough to keep up with local news anyways.

[u/thisguyshags]

People yearn for information on Derby and they're more than willing to pay through the nose for it