Conde Nast to Offer In App Subscriptions for iPad

[MacRumors]

The flood of news regarding companies rolling out support for in app subscriptions for their magazine content continues today with a report from the New York Post claiming that Conde Nast is set to launch the subscriptions for eight of its titles. The New Yorker is said to be the first to gain the feature, beginning next week.Conde is expected to make the New Yorker available next week to capitalize on coverage of Osama bin Laden's death.

But by the end of the May, Conde will have the seven other magazines that are currently selling single-copy-only editions on the iPad available via subscriptions, including Wired, Golf Digest, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Self, Allure and GQ.As part of the rollout, Conde Nast will drop single-issue digital prices to $1.99 from the existing $3.99 and $4.99 price points, and new annual subscriptions will be priced at $19.99. Subscribers to the print editions of the eight Conde Nast magazines available on the iPad should also receive free access to the digital editions.

News of Conde Nast's decision to join the in app subscription program comes just two weeks after reports surfaced claiming that the company was seeking to slow down its plans for iPad magazines amid weak demand. But with Time Inc. testing the waters with free access to iPad editions for existing print subscribers and Hearst Corporation going all in with full subscriptions through the in app subscription system, Conde Nast has apparently come onboard in order to remain competitive, providing Apple with significant momentum for the platform.

Article Link: Conde Nast to Offer In App Subscriptions for iPad

 

[infectbda]

I've been holding out on getting a print subscription to The New Yorker in hopes that they would be adding subs to the iPad app. Very glad I waited. Pricing sounds awesome.

 

[ngenerator]

Finally. Now I might actually buy a subscription for Wired. Maybe.

 

[Sratner]

Speechless.....

Holy Crap it is about time........

 

[Feynman]

Holy Crap it is about time........

It sure does seem like everyone (publishers) is jumping on board at the same time doesn't it?

 

[Constable Odo]

After all the initial bitching about Apple supposedly robbing the publishers blind or whatever, they all seem to be coming around to Apple's view. I doubt if they're going to be in any hurry to jump on the Android bandwagon if they expect to make any money at all. With iOS they've got a nice integrated platform to work with. I would think it's a no-brainer to work with Apple. I'm curious to see what Amazon is going to do since they seem to really want to compete with Apple.

 

[bubba451]

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There is no way they'll sell an annual sub to The New Yorker for $19.99. It's a weekly mag, and the print subscription is nearly $70/yr. That rate must be in reference to GQ, etc.

 

[abhimat.gautam]

Sounds great. Even though a lot of people were complaining very loudly, I felt this is what would end up happening.

 

[marksman]

After all the initial bitching about Apple supposedly robbing the publishers blind or whatever, they all seem to be coming around to Apple's view. I doubt if they're going to be in any hurry to jump on the Android bandwagon if they expect to make any money at all. With iOS they've got a nice integrated platform to work with. I would think it's a no-brainer to work with Apple. I'm curious to see what Amazon is going to do since they seem to really want to compete with Apple.

Amazing isn't it? It is funny too how after one fell in line the rest soon followed closely thereafter.

This is actually a good way for the traditional magazine media to breath life into their products. Well written periodicals are still something with some value, so getting that content to people in a way that makes it easy for them to consume it is very important. We obviously will see some comments from people who apparently were not born until after magazines and newspapers started on their steady decline, about how it is not worth it or there is no value... but the value is in the actual content and the writing.

Reading in depth articles that you find in weekly or monthly publications that often go in more depth or wider afield than daily publications or the often very sparse blog/internet web site media, is worthwhile.

The good news is there are more written content creators out there than ever, so these publications need to work on packaging them and their content in a way that is appealing to various audiences and delivering it in a way that is hospitable to how people live their lives these days.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Now to get NYT's to give us an affordable option...

Time is on to something... but hate that I have to buy the print media to get the iPad option... just seems to such a waste as we try to go green...

 

[swarmster]

Awesome news! I've said all along that Wired needed to at least get down to $20/month for me to bite (print subs are $10/year, but I value the convenience and not giving them my address to sell to everyone under the sun).

They just won themselves a subscriber. Who knows, this magazine reading thing could even catch on.

 

[fifthworld]

After all the initial bitching about Apple supposedly robbing the publishers blind or whatever, they all seem to be coming around to Apple's view. I doubt if they're going to be in any hurry to jump on the Android bandwagon if they expect to make any money at all. With iOS they've got a nice integrated platform to work with. I would think it's a no-brainer to work with Apple. I'm curious to see what Amazon is going to do since they seem to really want to compete with Apple.

Instead of publishers coming around Apple's view, it appears that publishers and Apple have reached a mutually satisfactory middle ground: publishers participate in the in-app subscription program and in turn they can offer free access to the digital edition to their paper subscribers. Publishers win, Apple win, readers win.

 

[pimentoLoaf]

I have a long-term subscription to New Yorker, and I archive back issues. I have 'em going back a few years and I also have (and get) the DVD editions.

Having free access for iPad reading would be icing on the cake.

 

[Lesser Evets]

There is no way they'll sell an annual sub to The New Yorker for $19.99. It's a weekly mag, and the print subscription is nearly $70/yr. That rate must be in reference to GQ, etc.

I doubt they'll sell many iPad subscriptions over that price.

The price of printing, distributing, etc. is HUGE. First, take off 55% (possible more) that is probably paid to the retailer and the distributor. $6 on stand = $2.70 as it leaves the presses. Then there is the whole printing expense, which is titanic. What goes to the printer is exactly the same except for file format as what would show on an iPod. $.40 an issue is steep, but it might be a good starting point to break into the market, hook customers, drag them over from expensive print-distribution-retail rungs. And next year or in two years they can slowly wham the price up and put the squeeze on the readers who stick with that rag.

I'd say 70% of the production fuss is eliminated with the end of printing and distribution of printed matter. Also, since all those ads pay for mostly printing, the money is then diverted back to pockets in the staff and the executives. It's like iPad reduces/eliminates printing, but the money paying for it still comes in from ad revenue.

An added bonus is that articles can now go on. Your anemic 64 page New Yorker could blossom to a 200pp. magazine. Or a 201pp. magazine. There are no format rules aside from the screen dimensions, kind of. Articles now trimmed to meet a page size can blather or expatiate. Adverts, instead of a set amount balanced against articles, can be dropped all over, which raises the income of magazines.

The iPad is a smart-smart-smart deal for publishers that can make it work, especially advertising based periodicals. If they all run together and tilt the market from tangible to electronic within a short time span, the publishers will win. Booksellers, printers, distributors, and news stands will lose.

 

[Martynh]

If this is anything like the eventual price, it's just in time to keep a customer. I have subscribed to New Yorker for years, but increasingly find that they (like the NYT) are more pleased with themselves than the journalism begins to justify. Add to that their inability to deliver to me in France in less than a week after it hits the newsstands in NY. They clearly know they are bad: they have used at least four shippers over the last few years, and graduated from atrocious (always very late, sometimes never) to mediocre (late, but consistently so).

Hence the ipad app seemed what I needed, if I need the New Yorker at all. The insultingly silly pricing that has applied up to now was therefore all the more disappointing: I can cope with incompetence, up to a point, but I really don't like being treated like a fool.

This isn't of course the first or last example of cackhandedness (as we say in the UK) in this area. I wonder how seriously these firms' managers have thought about the reputional issues: it isn't just a question of flailing about until you find a business model that works: after a while your customers start to worry whether you can think straight about anything at all.

 

[ciTiger]

It seems the companies are finally jumping in the subscription thing now!
This is good news!

 

[tj4306]

I know that I have not been big on magazine subscriptions but this may be the tipping point for me. Especially when they get Motor Trend and Car and Driver online.

 

[dstankus]

A step in the right direction, but they still don't get it that the digital-only sub needs to be _LESS_ than the paper subscription.

$20? GQ is $12/year, and that includes the costs of printing, mailing, subscription fulfillment, etc. It's not wrong that people expect that this savings get passed along...

http://www.amazon.com/GQ-1-year/dp/B00005N7QI

 

[a.gomez]

Instead of publishers coming around Apple's view, it appears that publishers and Apple have reached a mutually satisfactory middle ground: publishers participate in the in-app subscription program and in turn they can offer free access to the digital edition to their paper subscribers. Publishers win, Apple win, readers win.

Exactly

 

[bwillwall]

Holy crap 16 baby stroller!

 

[dvkid]

I doubt they'll sell many iPad subscriptions over that price.

Not sure you fully grasp the product here. To say that the product that goes to the presses is the same as the file that ends up in the app is just flat-out untrue. As a publisher using the exact same Adobe solution that Conde Nast is on, I can attest to the fact that a a lot of time and money is spent making the original print magazine readable on the iPad.

Add in the cost of developing videos and animated info graphics and I don't see how Wired makes much cash off of this.

Ad that isn't even taking into account the sizable fees that get paid to Adobe. Though Conde Nast's size allows them to amortize that cost out over several titles, which would be a big plus.

In short, publishers are trading the 50% newsstand cut on only those copies that they sold through retail for. 30% cut on every digital asset they sell. The traditional print costs are partially sponged up by Adobe and partially sponged up by the additional design dollars.

As a mag that doesn't retail via the traditional networks, we've had to struggle with this as we see 100% of thhe sale for nearly every print mag we sell. On the iPad, we are forced to give away a share we've never had to before.

 

[Porchland]

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There is no way they'll sell an annual sub to The New Yorker for $19.99. It's a weekly mag, and the print subscription is nearly $70/yr. That rate must be in reference to GQ, etc.

Yep. As long as it's comparable to the print subscription price, I'm in. I had a New Yorker print subscription for years but finally cancelled it a few years ago because I would have a foot-high stack of them that still had one or two articles I wanted to read.

With all the major magazine publishers coming on board, I'll change most of my subscriptions to iPad.

Hopefully, Rodale will get on board soon too.

 

[Porchland]

Now to get NYT's to give us an affordable option...

Time is on to something... but hate that I have to buy the print media to get the iPad option... just seems to such a waste as we try to go green...

I suspect the Time deal for print subscribers is transitional. If the other publishers are going to in-app subscriptions in the next several weeks, it's because Apple sweetened the terms for all of them.

 

[mackiwilad]

Not sure you fully grasp the product here. To say that the product that goes to the presses is the same as the file that ends up in the app is just flat-out untrue. As a publisher using the exact same Adobe solution that Conde Nast is on, I can attest to the fact that a a lot of time and money is spent making the original print magazine readable on the iPad.

In short, publishers are trading the 50% newsstand cut on only those copies that they sold through retail for. 30% cut on every digital asset they sell. The traditional print costs are partially sponged up by Adobe and partially sponged up by the additional design dollars.

How about using that new PPP process that our ol buddy Al Gore has been championing? I bought the app (book?) just to check out the differences between it and tradtional Adobe based mag apps and the difference was night and day. I would be happy if all mag apps were like that.

In fact I would be even happier if Apple or someone else made a magazine version of iBooks that actually worked well. Having heaps of different apps for different publications really blows.

 

[CAWjr]

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I'm excited to get my subscription of Golf Digest free on my iPad. I've been saying that if you pay for the print version, you should get the digital version free.