A subscription to the paper edition of Time magazine is $20 for 56 issues or .35/issue.
It’s $5.00 per issue on the iPad.
A subscription to GQ, on paper, sent through post office and delivered to your door is either $1.00/issue, or .83 each depending on whether you buy a one-year or two-year subscription.
It’s $2.99 per issue on the iPad.
Old media can’t fuck off fast enough, as far as I’m concerned.
I want magazines on my iPad. I want Scientific American, Discover, National Geographic, Computer Arts, Inked, Make etc… so that I can always have all the latest issues with me, the back issues I found handy, and hot links in all the articles so I can tap to read more relevant info in Safari. There are some art magazines where I still want the paper issue, but there are a lot more that I would subscribe to if I didn’t have to decide whether or not to keep the issue when I finished reading it.
I won’t pay MORE than it costs to buy the paper version however. It should be less, but if you say you’re going to include zoomable photos and occasional video, then the same price as a paper subscription is fair.
Idiots.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Aya // Apr 19, 2010 at 5:32 pm
I know I know!
This is how it goes. The reason why magazines (especially in subscription) are so cheap – I mean, think of the costs of printing, it’s basically like a medium size coffee table book and should costs a lot more) is that as we buy them, we basically pay for the right to look at advertising.
Right now, it costs a stupendous amount of money to advertise in a magazine.
ipad magazines, though don’t have any costs as far as printing, still doesn’t get as much money for placing ads. My guess is that as of now, the advertisers that pay to place an ad in a printed edition get the ipad ad for free, as a perk.
The publisher still need to have people producing the content and the people that adapt the content to ipad format, also, some of the images they use, they need to pay extra for the right to use them in the digital format. Not to mention apple take somewhere between 20-60% from the publishers.
So that’s why.
I’m guessing that when the digital addition becomes more popular and the advertising money start pouring in, the price per issue will becomes cheaper.
2 admin // Apr 19, 2010 at 11:07 pm
I think you’re 100% right—that that’s what the publishing industry is thinking—however I think they’re ass-backwards on that thinking.
The problem is that people are used to paying a certain price and the typical customer isn’t familiar enough with the industry to know why they’re charging more for the digital version. The complaints I see over and over on iTunes is that people think that because there’s no paper or postage, the digital version should be cheaper.
So it doesn’t matter what the reality of the situation is, in order for people to get on board with this new format, for the publishers to make any money at all in new digital media, they have to give the customers something to buy. If 90% of potential customers are scared off by what seems like an outrageous price, then there won’t be an audience to sell advertising too. Publishers will include that the whole digital thing was a failure, that people don’t want to pay for digital content.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The comments on the iTunes app store are proof that people are willing to pay. The publishers have to be willing to forego some initial ad revenue in order to present the customer with a price and product that is in line with what they’re expecting. Even give a little more by way of digital exclusive content. By doing this, they can grow their audience and then sell that audience, ready-made to the advertisers.
Or simply loose out to small time content producers who are willing to work with smaller but more targeted ad networks and who are willing to give more to build a real audience.
In the short term, this wouldn’t even necessarily mean lost revenue for the publishers. As you said, they’re already going to the large part of the expense of producing the content and traditional advertising will float that a little longer while they try out digital models.