Delaware’s largest newspaper installs online pay-wall

Readers who don’t have a subscription to The News Journal will now only be able to read a handful of articles on DelawareOnline.com before being locked out.

The free ride is over for readers of the News Journal’s online counterpart.  Subscribers will still have access to articles, blogs and videos on DelawareOnline.com, but readers who have been accessing the site instead of purchasing a subscription will now only get a few articles a month.

News Journal publisher Howard Griffin detailed the changes in a letter to subscribers earlier this year.  He was a guest on WHYY’s First last year and talked about the idea of making people pay to get content online, like the New York Times had recently started doing at the time.  “I think they’re proving to the industry that people will purchase content if they seek it out, and they desire to read the quality content that’s being generated.  I think all eyes are on that test, and there will be others I’m sure.”  

The newspaper is now offering a new digital-only subscriber tier for fifteen dollars per month.  As it sounds, the digital-only subscription will give readers full access to the website but won’t include home delivery of the physical paper.   The digital only subscription also allows readers to access the paper via computer tablets and mobile phones.  

Subscribers to the physical paper will also get all the benefits of a digital-only subscription.