The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is famous – or notorious, depending upon your politics – for its strongly conservative outlook. Yet it wasn’t always so; it started out in life (in 1855, named the Daily Telegraph and Courier) as a liberal paper, and remained so for perhaps the first 80 years of its existence. However, in 1937 it absorbed conservative daily newspaper The Morning Post, founded in 1801, and lurched decisively to the right. (Funny how you get more right-wing as you get older.) It was entitled The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post thereafter until switching back to its previous, and current, title in 1969.

The common perception of it is still as a paper read by retired colonels in south-east English villages (very much the Post‘s demographic), although it’s made some efforts to appear more trendy in recent years. (These efforts are mercilessly lampooned by satirical magazine Private Eye as consisting mostly of photos of Liz Hurley and other “posh tottie”.)

In spite of continuing pressure from The Times, it’s the UK “broadsheet” newspaper with the biggest circulation – nearly 580,000 in April 2012, compared to just under 400,000 for The Times. Actually, since most of the other national dailies have now switched to a smaller format (easier for commuters to deal with on Britain’s increasingly crowded trains), technically it’s the only national broadsheet on traditional paper. (The Financial Times is still a broadsheet, but of course is famously printed on salmon-pink paper.)

It’s part of the Telegraph Media Group Ltd, which was owned by Canadian businessman Conrad, Lord Black from 1986 to 2004, at which point he sold it to the Press Holdings company owned by the Barclay twins (Sir Frederick and Sir David). Since 2005 it’s been based in Buckingham Palace Road in central London.

Since 1961 it’s had a companion Sunday title, The Sunday Telegraph.

It’s also available as an e-edition (by paid subscription). Mobile phone browsers are automatically diverted to a mobile site at the same URL. Apps are also available for iPhone, iPad, Android and Kindle.

On 27 March 2013 the Telegraph Media Group announced that it was introducing a metered paywall for their newspapers’ website. Registered users would continue to have free access to up to 20 articles per calendar month before being invited to subscribe.

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