company in Canada to use plastic sleeves to protect newspapers bound for rural addresses. Ownership had been in the hands of the Motz family for generations until 1990, when the paper was sold to Southam in a $90 million deal. Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. took a controlling interest in Southam during the period when it owned The Record. The paper was acquired by Sun Media in 1998, but Sun itself was bought by Quebecor soon after, and The Record was sold to Torstar before the end of the year. The administrative records and photographic negatives of the paper amassed prior to the Sun Media acquisition are maintained at the University of Waterloo Library. On June 3, 2002, The Record switched from being an afternoon newspaper to morning one. In January 2005, the paper was moved to Market Square on King Street East in Kitchener's downtown core. It had been based on Fairway Road in Kitchener since May 1973. The paper was printed at that location on a letterpress system until 2000, when printing was moved to offset presses at parent company Torstar's Vaughan Press Centre in Vaughan. Printing later moved to presses of sister papers in Hamilton and Guelph, and then back to Vaughan from time to time. As of 2014, the Record is usually printed at the Star-owned Hamilton Spectator. On May 24, 2019, Torstar Corporation announced it will close its Hamilton Spectator printing operations on or about August 24, 2019. The printing work (including printing of the Record) performed at the Hamilton facility will be transferred to TC Transcontinental Printing, various Torstar-owned facilities, and other external printers. The Record building on Fairway Road in Kitchener was demolished in September 2005. On March 11, 2008, the name was changed to the Waterloo Region Record, returning the community name to the nameplate. In early 2018, the company announced that it would set up a paywall on its website. Consumers who do not pay the fee to subscribe will be allowed to read only seven articles per month. An article published by CBC News indicated that this strategy has not been successful for some newspapers. The New York Times has a million subscribers but the publication has an international cachet that makes it a "must-read", especially in the U.S. where Fake news has been widespread. Circulation The Waterloo Region Record has seen like most Canadian daily newspapers a decline in circulation.