Tallahassee Democrat Website Moving To Subscription Model
Posted by NoleCC
I realize that this isn’t directly about FSU Sports, but this is something that will affect the readers out there. On July 1, Tallahassee’s only local newspaper, The Tallahassee Democrat website is switching to a subscription based model. As far as I can tell, that means the local beat writers for FSU Sports will no longer have their content at Nolesports.com available for free. I’m saddened by the Democrat’s decision to charge for content. I will not be a subscriber of the site. It’s not personal and I have enjoyed reading some things there, but with tons of free options available it doesn’t make sense to spend my money there.
From a purely sports perspective, this won’t hurt the average FSU fan. Sure, people might miss out on an article by Ira Schoffel or Corey Clark, but the same topics are covered by many different blogs, free news sites, print media, television and radio. At the end of the day, an average fan won’t be uninformed about the major FSU sports. Football, baseball and basketball will continue to get a ton of coverage and continue to generate lots of discussion by fans.
What this hurts, yet again, is the non-revenue sports. I was thrilled to see Ira Schoffel cover FSU Softball a bit this year. The local news channels even showed an occasional highlight. It appeared to me that media was turning a corner and seeing the value of covering FSU Sports as a whole, which in turn can grab the attention of a casual fan that might be a MAJOR fan of a smaller sport. What happens now though, is that the casual reader that doesn’t pay to read the local newspaper won’t have their curiosity about softball, swimming or track piqued.
Sure, a softball fan seeking out news about FSU Softball could end up here at ScalpEm.com (I’m not aware of any other blogs that cover FSU Softball, but I could be wrong), but I don’t have the reach of the traditional media. I also don’t blog about stuff like track or soccer because I don’t generally follow it. On top of that, non-revenue sports pretty much have no shot of being covered by regional or national media. I’m only able to coherently blog about FSU Softball because I live in Tallahassee and can actually head over to JoAnne Graf Field to watch the team. Where does the casual reader go to read about the “other” sports other than Seminoles.com if a local paper in unavailable? Have you read their official articles and box scores regarding non-revenue sports? At times it’s good and at times it’s highly unreliable. Without some sort of local media acting as the second pair of eyes, it’ll be hard to get anything but an FSU-Official-PR filtered article.
I’m also disappointed as a techie that the newspaper industry can’t think of anything better than charging for the same old stuff. Case in point, look at the Tallahassee Democrat’s website. It conforms to a template (I hate that kind of stuff which keeps me from joining any of the blog networks) which is not suitable for new media. It relies on spammy ads (that won’t be going away under the subscription model) and for me it’s hard to find the news that I’d like to read. By all means their MIGHT be plenty of good news on the site, but it’s not front and center. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Florida’s Capital can’t have a newspaper site as good as the Naples Daily News? If I’m a techie and I’m frustrated with a site, then I can’t imagine what a normal user’s experience with it must be.
So what do you think? Where will you go for your FSU news? Will you subscribe to the Democrat’s website? Does this not affect you because you already go elsewhere? Leave me a comment.
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Jdogg on 
Chauncy on 
Redman on 
Good reading NoleCC, and your perspective on non-revenue sports coverage is dead on.
As far as NoleSports.com and TDO is concerned, they used to be the first site I visited when I need my Seminole sports fix. During the past few years, as the digital sites and blogs grew in content and popularity, I found myself relying less on NoleSports for my information, and they dropped to the bottom of my daily searches, just before the Heather’s ESPN/ACC blog.
Let me add that I have never, nor do I plan on ever, paying for a subscription to a pay-site. It’s not that I don’t have the disposable income, because I do, but it is the principle of why pay for something, when I can get it for free, or at the latest, the next day.
I also will not be paying TDO for information, even though I will miss Ira’s and Corey’s stories and blogs, although they are often late with news since I believe they only update once a day. I will continue to get my news at Tomahawk Nation, which as you know I am a member, AC’s Chopping Block, Brian’s St. Pete Times, the Sun-Sentinel and Herald here in South Florida (although the Noles’ coverage is almost non-existent), and of course the blogs that I visit almost daily, such as this fine one.
Thanks for the comment Frank and the compliments.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I feel badly for Ira and Corey, because I think they do a good job over there, but I won’t pay to read it. There are a plethora of places for info and insight now, like TN and AC’s blog that are timely and free. Why pay?
Locals call it the Tallahassee Democrap!
I chose to give the local newspaper a chance following my move to Tallahassee a year and a half ago but canceled my paper subscription after a year. Besides a few Sports writers, a column called Zings, and a few serious local writers with and without humor; TD was the worst local paper!
I continue to be surprised that a Capital City and a University Community would have such poor news representation, and unfortunately, that includes the local television news too. The Web site provided me with an alternative, but a poor substitute at best. Paying for the TD in paper or internet versions is throwing away good money!
There seems to be a real problem in our area of the country holding on to the past. Loyalty with tradition is admirable, but old fashioned presentation stuck in mediocrity is lost in this technical age!
And you can always still read about it in the newspaper the next day. Stupid decision by the Tallahassee Democrat.
I was shocked by the shear size of the subscription increase. We currently get the paper Sunday-only and pay $52 a year. They sent us something denoting that when the current subscription ends the price will be $12 per month or $144 per year. I told my wife we be going back to buying a sunday paper at the store. We typically (and realistically) only get the paper for the ads and the coupons, but all that stuff can be found online for FREE!!! They are apparently trying to put themselves out of buiness.
Coupons.com is a decent source online. I’m sure there are others, but I’m only willing to invest so much time tracking that stuff down. I’m with you on the ads too, you can get the flyers at the store websites without killing a tree.
Trust me, all those vowing to go the “free” sites instead of TDO will have very few newspapers to choose from in very short order. This a developing trend.
The Pensacola News Journal (aka “Mullet Wrapper”) is evolving to the same model as the Democrap. I too miss the quality articles by Ira and Corey and especially the occasional articles on FSU Soccer. The Mullet Wrapper seems to be shrinking in size by 10% per month and is a shell of the paper’s size 5 years ago. To severely increase the cost of the subscription while the size of the content is decreasing is a no win scenario. Expect most medium sized newspapers to become extinct in the next 5 years. An interesting web site to get news is http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/
I subscribe to one premium FSU sports service (Rivals) and will not pay for another with the free content available. I have just recently found http://www.Scalpem.com and TN and have found the content to be excellent. I suspect Ira moved to the Democrap because of decreasing revenues from the Osceola Newsletter.
BTW, if you think the content cost for FSU sports information at tdo.com is exorbitant then try putting an ad in the Democrap to sell you car via a ad — be sitting when you do.
Go Noles!
Thanks for the heads up about Newseum Chuck. That’s pretty cool.
I still can’t believe Classifieds are as expensive as they are, considering Craig’s List is free.
This really surprised me the first few times I linked to an article from their twitter feed. My first thoughts were what a stupid, stupid decision. No one is going to pay for that paper online when they can just browse on over to another resource and get it for free. Now they lose all the eyeballs that drive their ad revenue.
The only way this could possibly work is if all the other papers in the State begin to charge as well forcing a few to pay. At this point all they are doing is pissing people off.
I know all these papers are really, really hurting and the Democrat did this out of desperation. It just wont work. The newspaper biz model is going to have to adapt or die. They would be better served to substantially decrease overhead and put out heavy blog content by young, in-expensive but well trained new journalism grads.
I’m sure traffic has taken a nosedive. So where does that leave all the individuals and advertisers who paid an exorbitant price for TDO and print ads who also expected online exposure? Advertisers are spending more and getting less so that an antiquated print model can be subsidized.
Craigslist.com and oodle.com have my classified covered.
For sports I now go right to Orlandosentinel.com, stpetetimes.com, sunsentinel.com and palmbeachpost.com and of course, the blogosphere. All of them have outstanding statewide sports and news coverage. For ACC stuff you can’t beat newsobserver.com in Raleigh. All of those sites are doing a great job with interesting columnists. TDO should just be turned into a division of Floridatoday.com (which I would read if it weren’t so Gator oriented.) As of now, TDO has been un-bookmarked from my Chrome browser. Ok, so I may miss a story on how many water breaks the players took. So what? Who cares?