Conde Nast Slowing Plans for iPad Magazines Amid Weak Sales

[wovel]

I'd get the New Yorker in a minute if it was even remotely priced the way it would be for a print subscription. I'd pay even more--due to the convenience factor, but not $5 an issue.

The demand is not there because their prices are unrealistic.

Indeed, someone should tell them they would sell more magazines if they were priced even remotely reasonable.

Look at newsweek and Bloomberg Businessweek for how you might do subscriptions. Popular Science is priced right too, but their interface is just a bit over the top. Still a decent magazine though.

 

[spazzcat]

Part of the blame goes to Apple and their money grubbing ways, in that they want a 30% cut of gross sub $. This makes it far less attractive for publishers to do this. Also, I too would love a unified model, but I am sure Apple would also want a slice of the action here as well.

Oh please, you get a mag for about $1.50 mailed to your house, how is $4.99 or even $2.99 even remotely justified...

 

[spob15]

What does it cost these magazines to digitize an issue each month? Is there a team of 2 people or 20 putting the digital version? All the articles have been written and researched, the photographs and artwork already exist in digital form as well as the layout. What they save on digital issues; no paper, ink or printing costs, no delivery cost or at least a lot less. One thing they loose however is shelf space, how many times have you stopped in a store and thumbed through a magazine because the cover grabbed your eye.

That only applies to maxim and black bar mags...

 

[Boomchukalaka]

I like reading some of these magazines on my iPad. I like the feeling that I am doing something good for the environment, my own little way of saving a tree or two. But paying full cover price makes me feel like I'm being ripped off by the publisher, who didn't have to pay the costs of stock, printing and delivery of the news stand issues. And they want me to punish me and not provide me a realistic subscription price because Apple want their 30% for hosting and distribution? Nay nay I say!

 

[Sir Pancakes]

if i'm paying for a digital subscription, there's no reason why i should also have to look at ads.

i can see why there are ads for a print edition, due to printing costs, paper, and shipping, but none of those exist for a digital edition.

Magazines do not sell advertising to cover the costs of printing. They make the MAJORITY of their money through advertising. You'll often see mag subscriptions for really cheap online because they want to get the mags in as many hands as possible so they can brag to publishers about readership and charge more for ads.

I would guess the high price for iPad apps as more to do with the development costs than anything else.

 

[spob15]

#3 they took the printing costs and turned them into costs for web developers to code each issue along with paying apple

Do they have to code every issue? I would think if they were adding zero extra content it would be pretty streamlined at this point

 

[wovel]

Part of the blame goes to Apple and their money grubbing ways, in that they want a 30% cut of gross sub $. This makes it far less attractive for publishers to do this. Also, I too would love a unified model, but I am sure Apple would also want a slice of the action here as well.

Please, this is the same or less then pay subscription resellers. Then they have to actually print out a copy and mail it to you.

People who know nothing about publishing should stop commenting on the 30%...

 

[spob15]

Magazines do not sell advertising to cover the costs of printing. They make the MAJORITY of their money through advertising. You'll often see mag subscriptions for really cheap online because they want to get the mags in as many hands as possible so they can brag to publishers about readership and charge more for ads.

I would guess the high price for iPad apps as more to do with the development costs than anything else.

Agree with some of what you said...I have a newspaper subscription that I cancelled except for weekend delivery (wife is a coupon queen)...they called a week later and said we will send you the paper all week for free just the cost of your weekend rate. This is surely to boost distribution numbers. On the otherhand development costs should be capitalized and the finance behind generating an app would be nominal. Right price would offset those costs quickly. They are just trying to get the transaction customer. If your flight is delayed and you decide to buy a magazine, you buy the appissue...

 

[w00master]

It's amazing that whatever happens, on this site, it's *never* Apple's fault.

Heck, Apple could be killing innocent children, and peeps on here would blame the children.

w00master

 

[BobVB]

Guess I'm Old School…

I don't want a 'magic' magazine, I just want the magazine on my iPad and so I'm happy with Zinio. They want to sell zillions of copies they need to get their subscription rate down to the level of the mail subscriptions and make it easy to get them. Cute movies, animations and the like? Put a link to the web.

Magazine publishers: If you wasting any more resources than just making it an intelligent PDF file you are wasting your time and forcing the price up to the point no one wants your product. Learn from Steve - when doing something new make it build on what came before - people aren't going to get something new and unfamiliar in style or price, especially a much higher price.

 

[Popeye206]

What they're saving from not printing is being largely consumed by Apple's 30%.

-1 Wrong. They still have distribution costs of the printed version and printing alone accounts for about 25% of their costs.

They just don't have the model down right for one. I agree with others, it should be cheaper than the print version and/or be free when you subscribe to the print version.

The other issue they have is the value of printed magazines is quickly dying. So much information is available for free, it's hard to justify investment in general magazines unless there are specific articles you like to read or it's specialized, like Playboy for example!

Oh... wait... that's only going to be available for the future iPad Touch!

 

[Full of Win]

Oh please, you get a mag for about $1.50 mailed to your house, how is $4.99 or even $2.99 even remotely justified...

I said PART, as on it's not all because of Apple. Never said the pubs were the victims here, they also are to blame as well.

 

[Popeye206]

Please, this is the same or less then pay subscription resellers. Then they have to actually print out a copy and mail it to you.

People who know nothing about publishing should stop commenting on the 30%...

+1 I'm so sick of the 30% comments when that is not even close to the issue.

And I do know publishing.

 

[Popeye206]

I said PART, as on it's not all because of Apple. Never said the pubs were the victims here, they also are to blame as well.

They (publishers) are "all" the blame. Apple's take has NOTHING to do with the over-pricing. This is all new to the publishers and they're trying to do many things with electronic distribution.... find the value, re-coop their investments (this is all new to them and they need to have a different production process for digital) and they need to find value for their advertisers to make money.

 

[lgmars]

I have two concerns for Condé Nast's iPad publications.

1) They are big and appears to be in image files, not htmls. They may look beautiful on iPad/iPad2 but what will happen when we have a retina screen iPad3? It'll be 1/4 the original size, scaling will make it look ugly.

2) Price, one look at the comments under the app and you'll know. $4.99 per issue is blatant robbery. I remember they said they were working on a subscription model and we don't see it coming. We have The Daily, and we have Bloomberg Businessweek, both of which have a very reasonable subscription price, and none of them get bloated up to 100+ MiB per issue.

The first issue of Wired on iPad sold pretty well but obviously there aren't that many who would pay for that on a regular basis.

I really really wish they could release a New Yorker app like that of Bloomberg Businessweek, and at the same time offer a reasonable subscription model. It really is a great mag.

 

[swarmster]

+1 I'm so sick of the 30% comments when that is not even close to the issue.

And I do know publishing.

Yep, and the funny thing is, even if you want to pretend 30% is an issue, fine! Charge 100% more for the iPad subscription. That should make up for it, no? I'd gladly pay it.

The 500% increase they're asking now is outrageous. (Wired is $10 for 12 issues through Amazon.)

 

[ccmoo]

if i'm paying for a digital subscription, there's no reason why i should also have to look at ads.

i can see why there are ads for a print edition, due to printing costs, paper, and shipping, but none of those exist for a digital edition.

The price you pay for apps won't pay the bills, and advertising by itself won't do it either, especially online advertising, which brings in much less revenue than print ads. So if you want original content with original reporting, those content producers and editors have to paid somehow. It's going to take a combo of subscriptions/apps and advertising.

 

[swarmster]

1) They are big and appears to be in image files, not htmls. They may look beautiful on iPad/iPad2 but what will happen when we have a retina screen iPad3? It'll be 1/4 the original size, scaling will make it look ugly.

Off topic, but the whole point of quadrupling the pixels is that scaling will not make it look ugly. Four 'retina' pixels make up one 'regular' pixel, so you get the exact same image. They would look ugly in comparison to updated imagery, but they will look the same as they do now.

 

[reifer]

Magazines

The problem is cost
I'd love to have a subscription to the New Yorker but, I'm not paying $5 an issue. They need to have a subscription pricing plan.
I use Zinio.com and it is fantastic. Magazines on line on my ipad, etc. for the same price as a mail subscription but, I get them instantaneously no matter where I am. I have gotten MacWorld from them for many years. When the ipad app came out I subscribed to 6 or 8 others.

 

[Intarweb]

The price needs to be $.99 to $1.99 for each issue. I can get Men's Health in mailed to my house for $14.99 for 10 issues. Why does each iPad issue cost so much!

Because if they used that structure for the iPad Apple would be taking $.33 and Condé would be getting $.66.

 

[seamer]

Talk about unfeasbile. I'm not sure any of the claimed statements here about economics have any connection to reality.

Can you explain why no ink, no paper, and no army of delivery guys would still cost the same as digital distribution? Even with Apple's 30% and the bandwidth cost of shipping thousands of 10mb magazines, it'd still work out cheaper for users and make a profit for the company.

 

[Intarweb]

-1 Wrong. They still have distribution costs of the printed version and printing alone accounts for about 25% of their costs.

They just don't have the model down right for one. I agree with others, it should be cheaper than the print version and/or be free when you subscribe to the print version.

The other issue they have is the value of printed magazines is quickly dying. So much information is available for free, it's hard to justify investment in general magazines unless there are specific articles you like to read or it's specialized, like Playboy for example!

Oh... wait... that's only going to be available for the future iPad Touch!

Umm, printing is 25% of the cost and Apple takes 30%. Add in the bulk mailing per issue, which is very little, and it won't equal what Apple takes. yet people want these magazine companies to take less. Apple reduces their take and we'll see prices per mag go down.

 

[lgmars]

Off topic, but the whole point of quadrupling the pixels is that scaling will not make it look ugly. Four 'retina' pixels make up one 'regular' pixel, so you get the exact same image. They would look ugly in comparison to updated imagery, but they will look the same as they do now.

I think what you said is right. However my exact point is I want it to look as sharp as other text/html based mags on a retina iPad. I doubt they'll re-release a retina version of back issues.

 

[Full of Win]

I have two concerns for Condé Nast's iPad publications.

1) They are big and appears to be in image files, not htmls. They may look beautiful on iPad/iPad2 but what will happen when we have a retina screen iPad3? It'll be 1/4 the original size, scaling will make it look ugly.

Does it not depend the PPI that the image is ? If they have made the image at a PPI that the the same as the iPad 1/1.5, then you may have a point. However, if they made the image at a higher PPI, say 300+, then your point is moot.

 

[EvilEvil]

A lot of you are a bunch of cheap asses. Most of you don't understand the amount of work that goes into producing these apps. They're not just PDFs that you download and flip through. You get both an interactive version and print version of the the magazine. The reason print subscriptions are so cheap is because they don't really care about print sales. You're paying them to give your information to them so they can use it for marketing purposes. Thus another reason the ipad/iphone version are more expensive is because Apple won't allow them to collect your information. Conde is currently working on a subscription model, but it also how they are going to be able to negotiate with Apple.