The Tallahassee Democrat’s New Paywall. Or is it a PeopleWall?
It’s quite a predicament not making any money. Many of us have been there, scrambling to see where our next check will be coming from. Unfortunately, it’s the worst place from which to make big decisions.
On Wednesday, the Tallahassee Democrat announced a new pay-to-read model, no matter where their content lives. They call it a new revenue model, but really, charging for stuff isn’t anything new. The only thing that’s new is the price tag.
Although I can sit back at my desk and take pot shots all day long, I’m going to offer a few ideas that could help. Maybe they’re silly, maybe not — but what ideas has the Democrat explored prior to the price tag? Maybe the Tallahassee Democrat has considered them all in some form or fashion — days and nights of frantic white boarding. The world may ever know. However, one thing I do know is the tone of the Bill Cotterell’s article isn’t going to win over any potential subscribers.
Don’t build a wall around the paper. It’s a community paper. Involve the community in determining its future.
Since there is no other local general paper, you can certainly choose to sit there and jam anything down your local community’s throats like big ol’ corporations have done for decades, or you can sit down and listen to your audience and your local community.
- Formal Customer Focus groups: Considering the direction of the economy’s slope over the last two years, the Democrat should have started focus grouping a year ago, foreseeing the likelihood of a pay-to-read model.
- Informal Focus Groups: Have a feedback party. Invite people to a bitch and moan session. And don’t get defensive. Listen, learn, and then see if some of those ideas would be useful to you.
- Educate citizen journalists: Get into teaching mode. Involve the community of people with good opinions and good ideas and teach them how to structure a story.
- Create a citizen paper: Maybe it’s just an online version people get for free.
- Creative Brainstorming with Community Pros: Invite local creatives to an idea-generating roundtables to come up with even more ideas on how to push the Democrat into the future.
- Advertisers get a free all-encompassing subscription for every employee in the company.
- Create tiered small business pricing that allows companies to purchase subscriptions at a discount for all employees.
- Start smaller: Instead of starting at your ceiling price, why not offer 90 days to “lock in” at a discount?
- Offer an advertising-free subscription for $24.95 where you won’t get hammered with advertising online.
Anyway, you get the point. It hasn’t taken me that long to generate these ideas. So, imagine what we could do if we all worked together to figure this out.
What do you think of the new model? Will you be a subscriber?
Well, with today marking the change in the way the “community paper” as we see it handles business, my feelings are mixed. While I understand the need to further examine business practices including the existing model for revenue, I can’t say they came up with the most logical or efficient way of handling this. For instance, a few of the alternatives you mentioned appear to be no-brainers on the surface, but how did they come to a result like this? My immediate thought when I heard the news of the change wasn’t outrage – it was curiosity. I thought, “I wonder if they’ll start with a limited subscription fee that incorporated an option for premium content. Paid online content isn’t new, nor is the need to make money from it, but they failed to adhere to a simple digital community principle – listen to the digital community first.
I do understand the need to make some cash along the way, I’m just surprised that they didn’t, like you said, reach out for better ideas and more acceptable solutions. “Listening to the digital community” would have been nice. Not to mention they would have won over many more subscribers in the process. Thanks for coming over and commenting Joe.
I have been trying to get the Tallahassee to establish a “community ombudsman” for over 2 years! It was obvious right after Gannett came in that there was NO formal community input in a meaningful way going on in the Crat’s management. When Publisher Dorsey no longer follows the long tradition of writing a weekly Sunday Column for our town,… when the exec. editor and most of the writing staff show a strong disregard for their online community of readers, it was apparent EARLY to me that the Democrat NEEDED community input, but it was not welcome.
Please note that this entire “pay wall” scheme was NOT developed, or instituted by the Tallahassee Democrat, but by Gannett corporate, as 2 other Gannett newspapers in the country also switched over on July 1st. All three far enough geographically apart so each other does not see or read about the FLACK they all are facing for this hair-brained, and some may say, “hostile” action. We agree that there needs to be a new model of revenue, but we’ve known this for years, and the Crat has NEVER EVER even ONCE asked this community to help them brainstorm the problem and suggest meaningful solutions. Some surmise that Gannett controls it, and local editors have NO input… others think it simply a bunker mentality at the Crat, and if you don’t work there, you have no idea what is what. So sad that their mistakes can cause such a dumbing-down of our community by the lack of competent news being published and circulated.
Bob O’Lary
ps. My fervent wish is that they have now simply “bet the farm” on this pay-wall’s success, and will either now regain profitability, or will sink, go away, and make room for a new, and better newspaper to move in & pick up the dropped ball Gannett left on the field.