Apple News+, launched nine months ago, does not seem to be a cure-all for publishers’ business model issues.
The early results so far indicate that Apple’s move to offer a paid subscription service for news is having little impact on the bottom lines of publishers. While Apple News+ has helped with generating some additional revenue and reaching more international audiences, publishers indicate that the revenue generated from the initiative is, to date, modest.
“We’re happy to be on there because it’s another way to increase subscription revenue, but it’s not like it’s a huge boon for our business or anything like that,” one magazine exec said. To emphasize the point, this exec added: “It’s not really relevant.”
MacDailyNews Take: Of all of Apple’s services, the one that would benefit most from an “Apple Prime” bundle would be Apple News+.