To Pay or Not To Pay

I subscribe to Baseball America, a newspaper that focuses mostly on the minor league and college games, though it certainly has its share of major league baseball features. I've been a subscriber since I was 13 years old and have enjoyed its content.

The subscription comes with access to its online content, which is mostly the same as the print edition. So, I get to read the stories online before the paper arrives in my mailbox. While the site does have some items that are free for all to view, including top news stories and statistics, however, most of the site is locked up for subscribers.

Recently, the site has decided to offer podcasts for everyone to listen to for free, giving people more inside analysis at no charge, and it makes me wonder what kind of affect this will have on the circulation of the paper.

Personally, I will not relinquish my subscription, but for those who are more casual readers of the site and the paper could find the podcast adequate enough to satisfy their baseball needs. In listening to the first podcast, which was posted on Oct. 13, the two hosts, Will Lingo and John Manuel, have good chemistry and sound well, but they are limited because it's only a 15-minute broadcast, and because you can talk so much about one subject, it's easy for the listener to get confused or tired of the content.

In the long run, I don't think offering free podcasts will hurt subscription numbers, but I do think that if they keep the same format, podcasts should be for subscribers only. Podcasting is a unique function and as a subscriber who pays $128 for a two-year subscription to the print and online content, I'm a little upset that it's offered for free. Of course, maybe that's Baseball America's plan all along. Maybe they are buttering up people to get hooked on the podcasts and then make it a "subscribers only" feature. I wouldn't be surprised.