By 1808Delaware
The media landscape in Delaware County may have changed a bit this week.
The online edition of the Delaware Gazette, published since 1818 and as a daily newspaper since 1884, may have gone behind a paywall. As defined by Wikipedia, a paywall is “…a method of restricting access to content, with a purchase or a paid subscription, especially news.”
Putting it more simply, reading news on the site may now require payment, at least after a handful of “free” stories.
That shared, there appears to be a glitch with that plan. Clicking on the “Subscribe Now” button does take readers to a subscription site – but not for the Gazette, but a publication (myRGV.com) in southern Texas – a site owned by AIM Media Texas LLC, likely a partner company of AIM Media Midwest Operating, publishers of the Gazette. That company is located in Dallas, Texas.
In February, we shared news of the Gazette’s new website and their change in publication schedule (story is here).
Paywalls fall in and out of favor in the media industry, nationally and locally, as operations try to cope with reduced advertising revenue and hard copy subscription bases. The Columbus Dispatch has requirement payment for access for some time, and its free regional ThisWeek sites have been shuttered.
It is possible that a dynamic paywall is in place with the Gazette, something which would be impossible to know without inside knowledge. Those types of gates use reader behavior to determine whether a paywall should be in place for a particular user.
We will share updates as they are known.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
