“When Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, unveiled the iPad late last month, the big question among media executives was how it would transform their businesses,” Kenneth Li reports for The Financial Times. “Now they have at least two answers and a tangle of fresh questions.”
“Apple scored an early hit with the debut of an online bookstore to accompany the arrival of its digital tablet, in the process rewriting the economics of the e-book industry. But the device’s ability to transform other media segments will be more challenging,” Li reports.
“Apple answered one question by acknowledging that it wanted to go beyond the iBookstore that Mr Jobs unveiled last month and construct a well-stocked online shelf of newspapers and magazines, according to executives,” Li reports. “Discussions about selling publications through the store have stumbled on key issues.”
“Mr Jobs, who looked ‘much healthier in person’ than he did on stage a week ago, according to one publishing executive, and whose health has been the subject of speculation in recent years, spent the first week of February courting publishers and the news media in New York,” Li reports. “Over three days, he met executives and reporters at the New York Times and News Corp. He had private meetings with Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, and about a dozen editorial leaders at Time Inc, including Ann Moore, chief executive.”
“Mr Jobs articulated his belief that a ‘functioning media’ is vital to a ‘functioning democracy’ and how his ‘gorgeous’ device would help safeguard that role. ‘It sounds good to hear that from someone who’s making that kind of money that what you do is invaluable,’ says one person with knowledge of the meetings, ” Li reports. “Still, Mr Jobs has been unable to shake off the suspicion among publishers that what he terms the ‘the most important thing I’ve done’ could also come to represent the most important issue publishers will have to deal with in their careers.”
Li reports, “The question haunting publishers is whether they will suffer the same fate as the music industry, which was hit by Apple’s 2003 deal to unbundle the album format by offering downloads of individual songs via iTunes.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Pop, Rock, Country, Hip Hop, etc. music naturally breaks down into the smallest salable unit: The song; otherwise known as a “Single,” which predates the “album.” Magazines’ and newspapers’ smallest unit is the edition, so — since we highly doubt and haven’t heard that Apple is proposing micro payments for individual articles — there is very little similarity to the music business. Apple simply took the music industry back to where it started: Single songs, before the bundle the industry dubbed “the album” was developed to get more from you for less. It’s up to the music industry to adapt to a business model in which the customer has regained their rightful power to pick and choose, not be forced to buy a $16 plastic disc in order to get the one or two songs they actually wanted. Simply put, music industry, make better songs and you’ll sell more music. Also, you do not need to collect songs for a year or two until you have 12-15 of them. That’s outdated thinking. Now, you can release songs as they’re finished (as some, but not enough, artists have already learned).
Also, unless Josh Quittner is capable of selling out Madison Square Garden for people to listen to him read his own TIME Magazine articles (and buy the t-shirt), we’re quite certain that, since they help immensely in driving it, Apple understands that the massive additional revenue stream that the music industry enjoys (concerts, videos, DVDs, and merch) does not exist for publishing.
Right now, publishers are giving away their content for free. Pretty much the same end result as the music industry was stuck with; the only difference being that customers were taking it for free. Apple is providing a way for content creators to actually get paid on what sounds like are pretty good (70/30) terms. Periodical publishers and their employees should welcome that with open arms.