This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

The Daily Mail's chief says the company is "actively thinking" about charging readers to access some material on its website, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Viscount Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) whose family owns 21% of the media group, is quoted as saying it would start experimenting with a so-called freemium model - one which charges for certain premium content.

Rothermere was speaking at yesterday's Newsworks' Shift 2013 conference in London. In a report on his speech by MediaTel, he said there were no plans to place MailOnline's content behind a paywall.

But he did speak of experimentation involving Daily Mail Plus, its interactive app, for which readers already pay.

He is quoted in the Telegraph report as saying: "At the moment we've got no hard and fast plans to do anything… but we have started to look at premium content and we are trying to understand how we might find a mechanism to start charging for that."

And in the MediaTel report he is quoted as saying: "The birth of the internet...[and] the growth of tablet and mobiles represents a sea-change for our business, but the core belief [for our Daily Mail brand] is that we should not stop people viewing Mail content."

Currently, MailOnline boasts around 7.5m global browsers each day. In January this year, the website achieved 127m hits.

Commenting on Rothermere's statements, analysts at the global investment banking firm Jefferies International said they applauded his "open-minded approach."

They added: "Mail Plus presents DMGT with a perfect test bed for the paid content model, and reading between the lines here it seems that the inclusion of high quality video content may be the tipping point."

Sources: Daily Telegraph/MediaTel/Jefferies International