Peninsula Chronicle
The Readers Have Spoken
The Chronicle basically serves two constituents, the people who live on the Peninsula, and the businesses that operate there. It was started to keep residents up-to-date on what local businesses were doing, and to let local businesses inform customers about new enterprises, products, and services. Our expectation was the cost of operating the Chronicle would be financed by readers and businesses that had a shared interest in what we cover.
We started our paywall on July 1, 2022, after about fifteen months of being free to read. We offered monthly and annual subscriptions, and for those who didn’t want to make that much of a commitment, the option of paying 15 cents to read entire articles. Unfortunately, revenue from readers has not come close to paying the bills, as it has been less than 2% of our expenses. Since this has proven to not be a viable, sustainable way to publish, we are dropping the paywall, so all new stories will be free for everyone to read.
This means we will rely on revenue from local sponsors (advertisers) to fund operations. However, as you can see from most of our pages, we don’t have many businesses sponsoring the Chronicle. In fact, revenue from advertisements has been less than from readers. We are hoping that this will change if enough companies value our coverage of local business news. If you want to help keep the Chronicle operating, please contact us at sponsors@peninsulachronicle.com.