Ad Disclosure
Philadelphia Inquirer Offering 6 Month Digital Subscription for 25 Cents a Month
Published:
This came to the inbox on Monday morning:
When you click through, the deal provides “Unlimited Digital Access 25¢/month for 6 months… Then $5.49/week, billed every 4 weeks. No commitment, cancel anytime.”
I went back and looked through the CB archives, and this is actually the second-cheapest promotion the Inquirer has offered. Going back to 2019, they’ve offered $1 for 6 months, and $1 PER MONTH for 6 months, so at some point over the past four years, they’ve offered this six-month promo for $1.00, $1.50, and $6.00 total.
The $5.49 a week comes out to $21.96 per month, which is what I pay now. They increased the price a few months ago, up from $15.96 per month, which was $3.99 per week. I read the digital version on my phone in the morning and skim through for relevant sports and news stories. There’s still some high-quality hyperlocal reporting and column writing, despite a portion of the populace labeling the Inquirer as a lefty rag that jumped the shark years ago (paraphrasing).
The problem, like any ala carte digital offering, is that the marketplace is already crowded. You can get the Disney/Hulu/ESPN bundle for less than the monthly price of an Inquirer subscription. You can get The Athletic for less money. Peacock, Apple TV, etc. You have to be committed to supporting local journalism to buy an Inquirer sub, and while I think the content is still worth it, paywalled journalism is not something that Americans are super interested in right now.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com