To our premium subscribers,
In the coming days, The Lead will begin transitioning from Meta's Bulletin platform to a new website, which means some significant changes are coming your way. For those who subscribed through Facebook, there's some good news and some bad news.
- First, the good news is: You will receive a full refund for your subscription in December. That payout will come directly to your credit card via Meta.
- Secondly, the bad news is that when we transition to our new platform, you will have to re-subscribe.
For those who subscribed via Square, those subscriptions are still valid, and we will honor those agreements.
Overall, our experience with Meta and Bulletin provided the capital to build The Lead into something that offers value to our readers and viewers. With Meta's support, we quickly built The Lead into one of the fastest-growing news organizations in Central Texas. In September, The Lead gained more Facebook followers than the San Antonio Express-News and the Austin American-Statesman combined.
The future is bright for The Lead. The challenge now is making the transition. As part of our overall revenue strategy, we can do that with your ongoing subscription.
In turn, we will move The Lead to a site developed by a startup company called Indiegraf, which focuses on entrepreneurial journalism projects like The Lead. A key incentive was a continuation of financial support for The Lead through grants and back-end advertising tools. Indiegraf received a $3.5 million grant to manage on behalf of the Knight Foundation — a major funder of journalism nationwide. Some of that money will help The Lead during this transition.
If you want to contribute financially to The Lead, we are still trying to match our $6,000 grant from the Google News Initiative and the Local Independent Online News organization. We are bout 60% of the way there. Contribute here: https://checkout.square.site/merchant/MLEWCF2K4ASZZ/checkout/YE5IHXVYW4GJ5HUOOKXJDI4E
Those contributions helped make significant improvements to our The Lead Live webcast.
So, in the coming weeks you can expect the following:
- The morning newsletter will still arrive at 6 a.m. Monday-Friday.
- For those who subscribed with Facebook Pay, you will receive a refund; we will have a new payment method in the coming days.
- For those who subscribed with Square, your subscriptions will easily transfer over to our new site and platform.
- The Lead Live will still be on at 9 a.m. Monday-Friday.
- On Dec. 23, we will take a brief Christmas break and resume our content offerings by the first of the year.
- We could have our new website up and running by Dec. 23, but we're still in the development stages.
Once again, we thank you for subscribing to The Kerr County Lead, and we look forward to serving you in the months and years ahead. If you have questions, feel free to contact me at louis.amestoy@kerrcountylead.com
Louis Amestoy
Editor and Publisher
The Kerr County Lead
