How Plain Dealer subscribers will soon get a cleaner, more personalized news experience

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We are just a few months away from offering subscribers to The Plain Dealer’s print or digital edition a highly requested perk:

A version of Cleveland.com without advertisements.

People frequently ask us for a premium, ad-free version of Cleveland.com, stating that they would be willing to pay more for it. However, advertisements have always played a significant role in our community and do pay a lot of bills here. Although we have frequently thought about working to provide an ad-free option, we have decided to leave Cleveland.com alone for the time being.

However, we have increasingly regarded The Plain Dealer’s digital edition, which is available to all print subscribers, as our premier offering. We therefore charge a higher price for it. Since I pay it just like you do, I am aware of it. If I’m not paying for our news myself, I can’t ask you to do the same. However, I am also aware that we are working diligently to enhance our digital newspaper because, when the time comes for us to stop printing the printed version, many readers will still be signing up. (For that, we don’t have a date. The paper version is still viable.)

We added a whole section, now known as Extra, to the digital newspaper two years ago. The majority of night sports scores, late breaking news articles, and some amazing national and international perspective pieces are all included.

We switched the digital newspaper’s platform vendor earlier this year, which, as you may remember, caused some transitional issues. We also added scores of new comics and other features, some of which were only available on the digital version and others of which were available in print.

This brings us to the next stage, which is to include a cleaner, ad-free version of Cleveland.com within the digital newspaper app The Plain Dealer. This change was made possible in part by the difficult switch to the new platform vendor. Our previous platform did not allow us to accomplish it.

I’m pleased to report that Cleveland will be among the final cities to launch the new feature, which will be implemented across all Advance Local digital publications. Why am I thrilled about that? Because it guarantees that any issues that arise during the deployment will be resolved before our readers encounter them. You encountered some glitches because Cleveland was one of the first places to launch the new platform.

But I believe a lot of you will adore it once we get it in place. There will be a tab in The Plain Dealer app that will direct you to a condensed version of cleveland.com that only includes the material we create. You will sense that the page is considerably less crowded.

You will then be able to personalize it once it has launched and is operating without any issues. You can configure your version to serve only sports if you only visit Cleveland.com for sports. You can obtain a version of Cleveland.com that only features Browns news if that’s what you’re looking for. With state or local news and entertainment, you can accomplish the same thing. Even restricting the content you view to reporters or columnists you want to follow is an option.

We provide this response to people who express a willingness to pay for an ad-free version of our website. We view this new advantage as an extra thank you to our supporters, given subscriptions to The Plain Dealer are more expensive than those to cleveland.com.

On cleveland.com, nothing will change. We intend to keep providing a large portion of our content at no cost to everybody. Additionally, everyone who subscribes to cleveland.com will continue to see all of our publications there. However, advertisements will still appear on the website.

I’ll be back with more detailed instructions on how to utilize the new feature as it approaches distribution, but for now, I’m giving you advance notice so you’re prepared. Now is the perfect moment to set up your free digital access to The Plain Dealer if you are a subscriber. Go to the cleveland.com/account website.

We continue to improve the online newspaper. More updates. More athletics. More comics. More about personal finances. Additional takeaways on international and national news. Soon, cleveland.com will be ad-free.

Can be reached at [email protected].

I appreciate you reading.

Chris Quinn’s recent Letters from the Editor

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