Reuters holding talks on paywall

Eduardo Suarez of the Reuters Institute spoke with Reuters editor in chief Alessandra Galloni about the news wire and its strategy.

Here is an excerpt:

Q. I would like to ask you briefly about Reuters’ next steps. A paywall was announced and then postponed. But at the same time you’re launching newsletters and taking steps that bring you closer to the strategy of established newspapers like the New York Times. What’s your vision for the next few years?

A. Reuters reaches about two billion people every day in three different ways: through the financial terminal (which is our biggest client), through all our agency customers, and then through our new professional business, which includes a new website, which in this crisis has attracted more traffic than we ever imagined.

This is our direct-to-consumer play. And I think that’s great. It means we can reach more people and it’s a business opportunity as well. Yes, we were originally going to launch a subscription service that has been halted for now. But the talks are still ongoing, and in any case we are developing the website and there are other ways to create revenue. So I’m confident that we will have all the sort of commercial tools available to make our website thrive.

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