Inquirer.com and PhillyDailyNews.com, standalone websites for two newspapers owned by Interstate General Media, will soon close, Philadelphia Magazine reported Thursday.
According to a memo obtained by Philadelphia Magazine, the two sites, which feature content from The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, will be “folded into” one site, Philly.com:
What this means is that the standalone newspaper-branded sites will no longer exist and will instead redirect readers to Philly.com, where users will find Inquirer and Daily News journalism featured more prominently and have access to branded Inquirer and Daily News section fronts that represent the editorial voice and judgment of the newspapers.
The decision marks an end of an experiment began in April 2013, when both newspapers unveiled the subscription-based sites. The sites were designed to “reflect the papers’ personalities”
A few newspapers have released parallel free and subscription-based sites, including The San Francisco Chronicle (which maintains sfgate.com free of charge and sfchronicle.com for subscribers) and The Boston Globe (which offers boston.com for free and bostonglobe.com with a metered paywall system)
