“Although Wired managed to achieve 24,000 downloads in the iPad app’s first day, and over 100,000 downloads in June, digital sales of the publication have since dropped substantially. The company averaged just 31,000 downloads each month between July and September, and October and November saw only 22,000 and 23,000 in sales, respectively,” Electronista reports. “Vanity Fair sold 8,700 downloads of its November issue, down from an August-October average of 10,500. Glamour is noted to have slipped about 20 percent a month in the distance from September to November.”
Electronista reports, “The magazine industry is currently hampered, however, by an absence of subscription support at the App Store, which forces people to buy issues individually unless downloads are tied to an outside paper subscription. Apple is believed to be working on native support…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: After sampling their wares, we’re waiting for a more seamless subscription model and more realistic pricing to appear before moving from our old-fashioned paper magazine subscriptions to iPad. How about you?
It’s the pricing. $2-$5 buys a lot of good apps on the iPad. Why should each issue of a weekly magazine with one to two hours of useful life cost the same? The value equation is not satisfied, yet.
The experience is good but the price is all wrong and they forget that they are competing with everything else on the ipad and Internet… as for buying the paper mag, why bother as the ipad delivers on everything I need to read and consume!
They are talking about magazine apps.
To be honest, I just can’t be bothered with having individual apps for individual magazines, just like I can’t be bothered having individual apps for individual ebooks. I also can’t be bothered downloading a 400MB magazine issue, just to get a couple of lame videos in a quasi-Flash format.
That said, I am a big fan of Zinio, where I can read an electronic copy of the paper version of a magazine, without all the crappy “bells and whistles”.
Not only pricing, but delivery. I have a few subscriptions ( People an Food & Wine for example) and it’s such a pain in the a$$ to download, as they won’t do it in the background, and u can’t read until it’s fully downloaded. zinio however has done it very right, interface background downloads, read while downloading, etc. I don’t understand why more mags don’t just let zinio look after their electronic delivery.
The Economist works really well, if you are a paid subscriber you get the weekly iPad magazine for free; also it’s all in one App, not one App per issue.
I also tried PROJECT but second issue is late and I’m annoyed that I paid and then they gave it away for free.
I think magazines either need to follow The Economist’s excellent lead or have a better in-app purchase option — and contained in one App, not one per issue.
No, the industry is hampered by the fact that the content sucks. The only thing subscription support would do is to rope in the suckers before they have a chance to realize what trash they’re buying. Heck, even I spent a couple of bucks to to see what Popular Science had to offer. Deleted the app after one day. I can’t imagine that Vanity Fair or, seriously, Wired? actually have anything to offer worth paying for. And the delivered content is already months old once the publishers have had their way with it. At this point it’s just a novelty, no where near compelling, and it’s the content that’s to blame, not Apple’s delivery mechanism.
Yeah I don’t blame iPad/apple.
They need to do something like the economist does. (like the guy said above, I’m not a subscriber)
And 300-400 per magazine? Holy crap…
I cannot understand why the Kindle has a better subscription model than Apple. The same is about to hold true for the Nook. Neither device come close to the iPad, and even their subscriptions aren’t that great. In the meantime we are given the option of buying magazine issues in the form of apps, which is pathetic (and costly), although the interactive functionality of those apps trump the competition.
Someone mentioned Zinio earlier. I happen to like their model, and subscribing to a digital magazine is reasonable. I would sure like to see something a la iBooks for magazines and newspapers.
After sampling the magazines’ wares, I’m waiting for a more seamless subscription model and more realistic pricing to appear before moving from our old-fashioned paper magazine subscriptions to iPad.
The magazines thought that the iPad would be the ‘trojan horse’ in which to put eyeballs in front of advertisers. The combination humongous downloads and price point sticker shock up front has basically killed the format in it’s tracks.
They can try to justify the price all they want, but subscribers are the lifeblood of magazines, not newsrack sales. If they demand to send dead trees to people to appease the Audit Bureau, then they ought to give free or cheap access to online.
Better yet, just give us a decent sub rate and watch the uptake! I am already conditioned to pay no more than $1 per issue for Wired or Esquire or the New Yorker through aggressive subscription pricing and blow-in cards. Why would I pay $5 an issue for the ‘pleasure’ of reading on my iPad?
Are you listening, dead tree industry?
Magazines either need to include a free digital subscription with the print subscription to get people used to the migration to digital, or substantially reduce the per issue digital cost.
No one in their right mind would pay the current digital copy cost. The huge file size of these custom issues is also way over the top. I’m currently subscribing to Scientific American Digital Online. I receive a monthly email alerting me to the new issue, and download the PDF to read in iBooks. This works fine for now, and the cost is comparable to the print subscription. SciAm Digital does a good job formatting the issues, with active links embedded in the document. I’m currently seriously considering dropping the print version when my print subscription expires.
I have subscriptions to half a dozen paper magazines. If each of them were to send me a notice inviting me to switch my subscription to “paperless” issues, I would do so at once. Instead, they offer electronic issues at an additional cost, and that cost is substantially higher than the paper subscription. If these legacy periodicals want to stay in business, they’d better think fast.
Easy solution for magazines STOP BEING SO DAMN GREEDY!!!
Only fair price for an online magazine of any type is $0 the same you pay for the content in the paper version. Magazines are paid for by advertising plain and simple. What you pay for a subscription doesn’t cover the cost of printing and shipping. Advertisers pay not the reader thats the way its always been and the only way it will work in the future.
Magazines? Does anyone read them anymore? Whether paper or iPad based, magazines are dying. Who wants to pay for content that is already free? Who wants to pay for whatbfeels like a glorified website?
I’ve been very impressed with the quality of some of the magazines on iPad, many are a thing of beauty and provide an excellent user experience.
But i don’t work that way anymore. When i want information, I seek it on the net. I don’t wait for a monthly magazine to hopefully provide something I wanted to know.
I tried many magazine and newspaper apps, but found myself drawn back to the web for the knowledge and information they provided.
The future of all print media is web delivery, not iPad app delivery.
Novelty
Anybody read NatGeo on Zinio? It’s brilliant, and actually formatter to read horizontally very well. And I subscribe to it, along with a few other publications. I’m wondering what the problem is here. If Zinio can do it why can’t anyone else?
…’formatted’…
sorry. Carry on.
iPad = simple, elegant, intuitive.
Magazine apps = complicated, overworked, navigation-hell.
You can take the designer out of Flash, but you cannot take the Flash out of the designer.
How about pricing the subscription to match the value of the content — gasp! — what a radical thought!
I’d part with a penny per issue for People, USAToday, etc. The Economist is worth the current cost and their app is better than Zinio which is mostly a PDF reader.
If priced right ($1 or $2 per), done exceptionally well and keeps improving all the time (Paris Match), they keep coming back for more (I own all the issues since the beginning).
The only issue I have with Paris Match is the space taken by each issue and no way to back it up on your local computer.
Gilles
It’s all about the price. I have no doubts that this format will be the future standard; but consumers right now are saying, no way until the price is more realistic.
I’ve been expecting the initial burst of iPad mags to soon crash and burn. I’ve tried a number of them out of idle curiosity, but haven’t been too impressed, and Vanity Fair‘s format in particular was unbelievably godawful and clueless. The cleverest one that I’ve seen so far is Martha Stewart Living but I’m not actually very interested in that content, and I don’t expect that the type of people who are will be likely to want to read it on an iPad.
I use zinio. Good selection. Pricing reasonable. Still could use more $1-$2 per issue pricing. Cancelled all of my paper subscriptions. Overall the best model I have seen.Works well.
Australian Macworld:
1. News stand price = $7.95
2. Subscription price = $7.32
3. Digital subscription – $6.32
Powered by Zinio but look at the price between the digital and non-digital version.
Before the new digital (download) paradigm is complete there’ll be a lot of blood on the streets before the publishing industry comes through this.
I publish a magazine in London for bodybuilders – the Beef – and we move a lot of copies through news-stands in UK. I love my magazine but also my new iPad! Sadly, my digital version is via Pressmart – and it looks great on the Mac – but not on the iPad of course, being based on Flash.
What’s a girl to do?
Once the realistic subscriptions come into play there will a big surge in sales
Publishers fail to understand the iPad, especially iPad users. The new magazine “Project,” for example, is a dog on the iPad. I quickly removed it. Other magazines and newspapers are asking way too much. I delete those apps that require a weekly or monthly subscription at high rates; I delete those apps that require individual purchases at news stand prices. It’s better to sell a million at $0.99 than 8,700 at $4.95. It’s about competition, and iPad users want fantastic products at low prices because it can be done; and it is done by those apps, such as “Flipboard,” that provide excellent content and screen navigation at low prices.
@Alex McKenna – make beef stroganoff?
I have print subscriptions to New Yorker and National Geographic. The iPad versions of both magazines come free. I never had to sign up for them. The publishers just seemed to know that I have an iPad.
There is one magazine model that works
free magazine – paid adverts
these ipads magazines are pretty much free for the publishers
a bit of text a few photos, they must have been dreaming of all the dollars they could make with out even making a physical product
wake up publishers
Does this data include Zinio subscriptions? I have moved all five of my current magazine subscriptions to Zinio. I love the convenience. And the pricing for all five were competitive with the hardcopy subscriptions they replaced.
Do you want 1000 purchases at $5 per week or 50,000 purchases at $1 per week.
Quick, give us an answer.
I thought the iPad would have been the perfect platform for nice full color magazines and a real good non-paper solution for newspapers, but the idiots who create these digital products never realized that people won’t pay twice as more for a much cheaper to produce digital version than the good old fashion paper version.
Hmmm… Five bucks for one digital magazine or a full year of paper mags for 9 or 10 bucks.
Should I get a full year of the wall st journal paper edition delivered to my house by 5:00 am for $100 bucks or pay $5 a week for the digital version?
It’s a real no-brained that the current model failed, it never stood a chance of succeeding.
I hope someone gets half a brain and fixes this problem. That’s one of the main reasons I bought my iPad, to read on the go.
@Big Als MBP
i dont have the time for all those. How many for 10 cents?
Yep, not very surprised about this one.
Publishers save a lot more than paper and ink with digital distribution. Newsstand, postage, or home delivery accounts for the biggest chunk of the price of a publication.
Apparently publishers aren’t looking at that but rather at reinforcing the notion their content is worth the same as with physical distribution. However that is not the what the iPad proposition should be, and the readers know it. Charge significantly less than the dead tree version and readers will flock; profits will rise.
I’ve got Zinio for Sporting News Today,Macworld,3 photo mags,Mother Jones,Rolling Stone,Utne Reader,National
Geographic,Sound & Vision,Home Theater,Science,iPhone
Life.
Got Press Reader for Washington Post and The Guardian.
Economist app. for The Economist.
All reasonably priced. No problems. I’m happy.
For other apps and mags, the pricing structure has to be
worked out. No way $4 a pop for Wired ($48/yr) or Popular
Science ($36/yr) when I get 365 issues of Sporting News
Today for $36,26 issues of Rolling Stones for $20,12 issues
of Macworld for $20 via Zinio. Incidentally, Popular Science
is $20 a year on Zinio.
FAR too expensive, fussy apps, flashy and shallow production.
How about 50 cents an issue?
How about a more simple product – I really dont need the movies, the shimmering twitchy Jeff Bridges thing, etc. etc.
Fast and simple, cut the crap, concentrate on the content not the wrapper.
Yeah, I know. I am dreaming.
These style-obsessed fools cant put a straightforward magazine together.
It’s the price stupid! A magazine I subscribe to and which will remain nameless costs me $14 in paper, but $36 a year digitally. I thought digital books were bad in costing more than their paperback counterparts, but digital magazines take the cake.
My wife loves her Kindle. However, I have no interest in reading books or magazines online. it would have to be ridiculously cheap and easy. Then again, I find that when I download my Zinio free subscriptions, I may browse through them and never read.
Blaming the contents of magazines is completely off the wall! I love books and subscribe to way too many (print) magazines I can’t do without.
Plus, you can’t duplicate the experience of seeing and smelling thousands of fresh books at the book store on an iPad (or any computer).
zinio
I gave up on magazines about 5years ago. I now have 5 subscriptions, all about 12 bucks a year, and I would agree the price point should be 50 cents an issue, but some of the perks like being able to click on an ad to go to the web site help.
Price sucks for what you get. Something great will come out eventually once someone figures it out.
If you deduct the cost of printing, distributing and warehousing all those printed magazines, digital mags should be much cheaper than their over-priced paper cousins. But magazine publishers, greedy beggars that they are, want to charge the same price! As Mammy said in Gone with the Wind: “Askin’ ain’t gettin’.”
Zinio- Works for me. Some others have tried too much of the whiz-bang in my opinion. I also like to get the same ads as print mags, which Zinio gives me. Ads are a huge source of information in specialty mags and are part of my reason for buying them.
Apps like Pulse give me a mag experience, updated daily. Traditional news and broad based monthlies will struggle competing with that. On the other hand, small specialty mags could flourish if there were a well done “News Stand/Subscription” app.
Use Zinio to get a couple of mags as a test. Pros-Can be read on my iMac or iPad, content. Looks great, like the hot links for more info/ads
Cons- pricing and selection
Mags are too expensive and no way of backing it up or saving it unless it is on the magazines’ site, my info.
Also why pick on the mags?
I find kindle e books not cheap!!!
The other cool thing about The Economist is that the issues contain only the content (text articles, graphics, illustration, etc.) all formatted as per the magazine … but no advertising.
Hence the files are small, and it’s great to flip through on the iPad.
It’s all about price. A paper subscription costs less than a digital subscription. What’s wrong with that picture?
@MDN
what happened to the triumphant proclamations that iPad was going to revolutionize and resurrect the printed media industries? You’ve changed your tune…
I can pay to download and read an iPad mag app or just read the web. I’d rather just read the web for free and I expect others would rather do the same too. Magazines are dead and why would you want to replicate them on the iPad?
been mentioned a few times above but let me say it again…
if it’s free on the internet, i damn sure am not going to pay for an ipad app version of it. if the internet version required a subscription, i might consider buying an ipad optimized form of delivery.
Zinio has worked flawlessly on the iPad and with prices generally less than the paper versions of magazines. It’s almost easier to read the Zinio version than the dead tree version, with no clutter to aggravate my wife. Zinio in fact works better on the iPad than on my Macbook Pro because of the “swipe” functions on the iPad. The only paper magazines I still read are ones that don’t have a reasonable digital equivalent.
@TornJeans:
Right! ebooks, like emags, cost less to produce and distribute yet cost as much or more than their paper counterparts. In some circles, that’s called highway robbery. Content publishers deserve to suffer until they stop gouging their customers.
I keep waiting for a reasonably priced subscription model. Wired, I’m looking at you. If I could order a Wired subscription, digital only, for a reasonable price (.99 to $2.00 maximum) an issue, I’d jump on a multiyear subscription in a heartbeat. $4.00 an issue is absurd. Right now, Zinio offers a few mags at a reasonable price but they’re hobbled by the interface. If a magazine is going to be an app and sell well, it has to attract meaningful numbers, and the price point is what’s going to change that.