Apple Was Unable to Ink Apple News+ Deals With WaPo and NYT Despite 'Vigorous Courtship'

[jpn]

the NYT subscription price is very much negotiable with the NYT, i found out.

i found this very interesting:

i have been a NYT digital subscriber directly with them for 3 years.

1st year: i paid USD USD 10.00 every 4 weeks

2nd year: i paid USD 4.00 every 4 weeks (i actually resubscribed late in my 1st year, thereby cancelling the USD 10 per 4 weeks and resubscribed at a price of 4USD during a period where they heavily reduced it to attract new subscribers.

3rd year: immediately after the 2nd year subscription ended they automatically and without any notice to me at all, even within the app or in an email, raised it to USD 12.00 for 4 weeks.
so i contacted them to cancel it (there is no way to terminate your subscription without actually contacting them).
i got into an on-line chat with a rep.
i told him that i could not afford 12USD for 4 weeks.
he went away for a few minutes and returned to the chat to ask me if they maintained the old price of 4USD per 4 weeks if i would remain.
i said yes.
he immediately changed my subscription to 4USD every 4 weeks.

what i learned: they are all about keeping paid subscribers. the actual amount that we pay seems to be not the current primary objective. rather, get subscribers who are willing to pay.
they are still trying to figure out at what price subscribers leave.

Washington Post is a very very different animal.
they have very strict and high pay walls and do not have attractive new subscriber rates that last for very long.
but i really want a subcription...
therefore i was hoping WaPo might be going into the apple News+ bundle.

there are only 4 newspapers i want: NYT, WaPo, The Guardian, and LA Times - and LA Times is for the ads only...

 

[EdT]

As to getting news from only "one source", that really depends upon the source. Publications like NYT and WaPo have an amazingly diverse set of offerings on a daily basis, though yes, their editorial sections tend to reflect the opinions of their chief editors and their respective boards of directors. NYT tends to be slightly left of center (though center is a rather right leaning target these days), but even that doesn't prevent their presenting a bit of balance. For every Paul Krugman there is also a David Brooks. Additionally, NYT also delivers great criticism and reporting on the Arts and Entertainment fields, from music of all genres, dance, theater, books/literature, and visual arts. It is a great newspaper and I (and apparently a lot of others) find the publication worth a $15 online subscription.

The only 'free' new sources that I pay any attention to anymore are the CDC and BBC. I'm American. I don't automatically believe any site but there are 'news' sites I do automatically discount until I find multiple points of agreement with other independent news sources.

I do subscribe to Washington Post. In the past I've had NYT. I have complaints with both, but their news is as unslanted as it is probably possible to get here in the U.S. Everyone is slanted one direction or another.

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

That’s *precisely* why people choose to pay for news. News outlets that you pay for are going to have the budget and financial stability to do the hard work of researching facts and hiring excellent writers to convey them. You build a relationship of trust with news you pay for. Free news outlets that rely on ad clicks have very little to lose and serve their advertisers rather than their readers.

This ^^^
The old adage that "you get what you pay for", applies to news sources in spades.
Dude, just spot on.

 

[curtvaughan]

Um, no, it's not that big a deal to not spell it out. WaPo is a frequently used abbreviation for the paper. Most people who keep up with news would recognize it.

Yeah - it's also the shorthand used in the stock exchanges, as is WSJ.

 

[HiRez]

Eddy Cue strikes again. The "master negotiator" for Apple is as about as effective a negotiator as the buffoon we have in a house that is white.

 

[AppleScruff1]

They'll eventually fall, just like the Apple Pay holdouts.

Or at least you hope that’s what happens. But what if it doesn’t?

 

[Baymowe335]

This is completely different. You’re missing the point.

We shall see how different it is.

 

[nouveau_redneck]

Why is anyone signing up to this for 50%?

App developers are complaining about 70-30 and Spotify is taking Apple to court over 85-15.

Are they all just desperate? I guess a lot of online news is basically given away free anyway and apple news will prevent ad blockers, so maybe they have nothing to lose.

Still seems insane.

Yes they are desperate. And they know aggregators like Apple News will be the end of them eventually. It's better to get a few dollars for a few more years, rather than fail completely just around the corner.

Joining aggregators is just further commoditizing a dying industry. Journalizm has died years ago. "News" is now just propaganda promoting an adjenda. Information is free. Times have changed and they are just trying to get a few pennies while they can.

The smart ones are the ones not joining and standing on their own merits. It's the weak ones jumping onboard.

 

[Chopper9]

Apple was desperate to secure deals with The Washington Post or The New York Times for its recently announced Apple News+ service but was ultimately unable to persuade them to sign up despite a "vigorous courtship," according to a new report from Vanity Fair.

Well, least Apple got something right lately. Even if they didn't mean to.

 

[DoctorTech]

In the current culture in "news" these days, I find it amazing that people will be willing to pay a monthly fee for "news" from any "news" outlet. Whether it's these two newspapers or AppleNews as an aggregator. I guess we'll see how successful Apple will be.

To me the "value added" by Apple is controlling and formatting the news reading experience. I can view lots of free "news" using Safari on my iPhone or iPad but I hate all the incredibly annoying pop up ads, automatic video players, redirects, click bait ads, etc. etc. I signed up for Apple News+ and I am giving it a try but the jury is still out on whether I will keep the subscription beyond a month or two.

I can tell you my favorite feature so far is that Apple News+ is "clean" and visually appealing. Yes, there are ads but there are fewer ads than you would see on most news websites and even the ads are visually appealing. I don't feel like my eyeballs are under assault and so far I've not encountered any "Solve _____ with this one simple trick / the crowd when wild when she..." click bait.

 

[reden]

This is going to fail. I already switched to the Reuters app when Apple made this announcement. To the newer generations paying for news is the most ridiculous concept considering the wealth of information online on any particular event. If I end up in the new york times website and it's asking me to pay to read an article, I just leave and find a similar article elsewhere, there's nothing special about news anymore unless you're getting decent reports that aren't sensationalized like most news companies do now. Apple really is disconnecting more and more from its costumers that helped build their company.

They literally just announced a grip of subscriptions for a keynote event, that's unprecedented for Apple. I get they're a service company as well, but you can't possibly blindsight people like that, they will hate you for it. Forgetting the roots from which they came from is going to cause a lot of damage in the long run. The pro community is already being forgotten. Steve is being forgotten. Remember "one more thing" and its wow factor, what a shame, no more wow factor, it's gone.

 

[ipponrg]

To me the "value added" by Apple is controlling and formatting the news reading experience. I can view lots of free "news" using Safari on my iPhone or iPad but I hate all the incredibly annoying pop up ads, automatic video players, redirects, click bait ads, etc. etc. I signed up for Apple News+ and I am giving it a try but the jury is still out on whether I will keep the subscription beyond a month or two.

I can tell you my favorite feature so far is that Apple News+ is "clean" and visually appealing. Yes, there are ads but there are fewer ads than you would see on most news websites and even the ads are visually appealing. I don't feel like my eyeballs are under assault and so far I've not encountered any "Solve _____ with this one simple trick / the crowd when wild when she..." click bait.

You can subscribe to RSS feeds. Instead of letting someone else curate it for you, you can curate it yourself. I’ve read most of my news this way.

 

[truthertech]

Indeed. I see we agree.

 

[PickUrPoison]

I wonder who would want this $20 seems like a lot and it jumping to $40 later is a ton.

$20 is a lot and $40 is a ton? You’re insane!!

FTA, Vanity Fair says the following re: who would pay $20-40 a month for the Wall Street Journal: “Its main subscriber base consists of corporate accounts and ‘high net-worth individuals’ interested in business and finance news.”

$20–40 a month to corporations and wealthy individuals is nothing—that’s the point. They aren’t going to stop paying for the WSJ just because they might pay $9.99 a month for Apple News+.

 

[ldandp0]

So the people that sign up for this service are getting sloppy seconds.

 

[ldandp0]

I had been sitting on the fence about getting either a Toronto Star or a Washington Post subscription for my daily news source. I couldn’t commit to paying for both.

I really value the Star’s reporting but their content delivery is terrible — like an old man trying to dress like a teenager. They don’t understand digital.

The Washington Post does both very well and so I was close to pulling the trigger on a subscription.

When Apple News + was announced, the choice became clear. I could get The Star’s excellent reporting in a format designed for iPhone and iPad and I’d also get access to magazines like GQ, Time, Popular Science and National Geographic. No brainer.

So, by opting out, the Washington Post gets nothing from me. It would have been better to get 10% of $9.99 than 0% of $15. They would have absolutely gain new readers and make up for the lower per reader share on increased volume. Hopefully they change their mind as AppleNews+ evolves over time.

Would you like Apple to make every decision for you? How about what underwear to put on in the morning?

If some of these posters aren't some poorly functioning AI bot written by an apple intern, i'll be severely disappointed.

 

[ldandp0]

It's funny, I'd like to see the amount of people subscribing to Apple News that support a $15 min/wage, as they help drive down journalist salaries to increase the coffers of the incompetent Apple execs described in the story.

 

[AppleHaterLover]

Come to my platform! We'll cram a middleman into your distribution business, cut your profits and control your platform. When you're entirely dependent on us in just a few years, we'll make you our bitch.

Yeah no thanks.

 

[Tech198]

When companies like Apple don't get their own way, they make a big deal out of it... Why ? So, they won't get these "few", its not like they haven't got any on board.. They should be happy

 

[BuddyTronic]

WaPo...um, is it too much to spell out Washington Post?

At any rate, now that I know what WaPo is, not interested in these or Apple News+.

That’s what I was thinking too. “WaPo” - I didn’t realize that was a thing.

On the Wapo topic, nobody thinks it is relevant that Bezos (Amazon) owns the Washington Post? Maybe that’s why there is no deal here!

 

[Gasu E.]

Now if the NYTimes is really charging $15 per user per month (although most people on this thread are paying far far less) the NYTimes would earn $60million per month on 4 million subscribers.

I truly believe Apple thinks this will be as popular as Apple Music, which has 56 million subscribers. I don't think it will be, but if they can get to about 50%, or 25 million users that would be $250 million dollars a month. Divide in half that is $125million. Let's say that half is divided evenly between 500 content providers? That is $250,000 per month per content provider. A far cry from $60million.

Now, if they could get to 56m and if there are only 300 content providers? That is almost a million dollars per content provider, per month.

It's not likely that all content providers would see the same traffic. Not even close.

 

[512ke]

Maybe Apple can produce their own original news content like they’re producing original TV content................

 

[PickUrPoison]

That’s what I was thinking too. “WaPo” - I didn’t realize that was a thing.

On the Wapo topic, nobody thinks it is relevant that Bezos (Amazon) owns the Washington Post? Maybe that’s why there is no deal here!

It’s just their shortened domain name, wapo.com.

re: Bezos/WaPo, I think it’s more likely just the same reasoning as the NYT. They’re one of just a few who are doing well with their own online subscription business, and they think they would do worse under Apple News+. (They’re probably right.)

There’s also the privacy issue; they wouldn’t be able to command the same advertising rates without all the subscriber targeting/tracking capabilities that they would lose from being on Apple’s platform.

If Apple News+ does very well over the next few years, they might be able to get one or both of those holdouts but I think it’ll be tough. It would require them losing a fair chunk of their current subscribers to AN+, and Apple building AN+ to maybe 100 million subscribers. Even then the NYT would need to grab 10% of the eyeball time to pull in $600 million. Personally I think Apple will be lucky to get 20 million subscribers by the 5 year mark, but who knows? I’m sure their goals are more ambitious than 20 million though.

 

[itsmilo]

The app is horrible in my opinion, there is just too much content in one spot. I get overwhelmed and just close the app out of frustration not sure what to decide on

 

[Peperino]

Wow 50%... Now that is a rip off... even more than the app store.
I wonder why they do not want to sign.