Interstate General Media, a local investor network, bought the Inquirer and Daily News in April — the papers’ fifth ownership change in six years.

The new strategy is similar to the one the Boston Globe enacted in September 2011, which kept Boston.com free and launched BostonGlobe.com as a subscription site. NetNewsCheck first reported the news about the Philly papers.

“We need to really develop a strategy for Philly.com,” Inquirer executive editor Bill Marinow told Nieman Journalism Lab in September, adding, “My opinion is that there needs to be a website that really is exclusively the province of the Inquirer, that people who want Inquirer content and Inquirer judgment have a place where they can go.”

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / Ruggiero Scardigno