The M&G was the only newspaper that saw significant increases in its audited sales for the first quarter of 2016. We were up 12.1% year on year while weeklies, in general, were down 10.3% for the same period. But we know we cannot afford to stand still if we are to move with the constantly changing demands of our audience and new technologies.

Which is why we have launched a new strategy, along with a new site. It is part of an ongoing process of change and innovation at the M&G to ensure we position ourselves for the future.

Quick hits, wire content and breaking news defined a large part of our online output. There’s still a space for that, but for a few weeks now we have quietly launched our daily edition. This is a daily output of about 10 quality pieces of original journalism by M&G reporters, on the level of quality of what you will see in the newspaper.

You will be expected to pay for most of it, as that is the only way we can ensure the survival of what we do. By signing up for a digital subscription for just R79.99 a month you can have access to the daily edition as well as a digital edition of the paper on a Friday.

But if you don’t subscribe you will still get an enormous amount of content for free, with more being added every day, as part of the normal output on the site. To coincide with the launch of our daily edition we have launched a new website too.

The new site is more visual than our previous sites, with slimmed down but punchier information about each article on the front of the site. Instead of wading through a headline and blurb you can make your choice based on one, longer-than-previous headline. There are also larger images and a greater variety of choice of articles with far more spots to carry our content.

New elements on the site reflect our new philosophy: wire content is carried in a sidebar called “breaking news”, while you can peruse the rest of the site for more thoughtful takes on the bigger story, instead of the incremental takes on an unfolding story that you could find anywhere else.

We have big focus areas that allow you to be still and appreciate one piece of content, whether it’s a beautiful photo, a video or a series of longform articles to choose between. We want to give you breathing room in an increasingly manic online space and we hope our design choices reflect that.

*Edited for length

Read the full statement here

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