The Peacock’s Paywall

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NBC News once vowed to keep its best journalism free, but the news outlet is now putting its exclusive and enterprise reporting behind a digital paywall—and not everyone inside the company is thrilled, Status has learned.

Last February, NBC News Group boss Cesar Conde announced a major initiative in an internal meeting: a subscription service for NBC News. Until then, NBC News had proudly championed the fact that it made its reporting free, opting for an advertiser-supported model in contrast to one reliant on subscriptions that put stories behind a paywall. Which is perhaps why Conde quickly reassured staffers that the new subscription service would be for additional premium content—premium video, in particular, he said. NBC News' existing offerings, he underscored, would remain free.

“We at our roots here at NBC have always been about advertising free premium journalism for our audiences, for mass audiences,” Conde said, according to a transcript of his internal remarks obtained by Status. “That hasn’t changed. That won’t go away. This service will be additive, will be in addition to that."

Speaking to Semafor later that month, Conde doubled down on that strategy, telling Ben Smith that the company's "roots as a broadcaster" has "always been ad-supported, free journalism for mass audiences." Conde said that was "not going to change" and that the organization would "continue to put our best journalism free and ad-supported."

That approach, however, appears to have quietly evolved—and the change in strategy has ruffled some feathers inside the peacock's editorial division, Status has learned…

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