The UK’s Guardian newspaper published a very interesting article on Monday about the iPad and media publishing. In short, the iPad is not generating the revenues that it was expected to and subscriptions are slumping. However, many publishers are hopeful for the long-term.
The story quotes figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which particularly cites Condé Nast’s Wired. On launch it sold 73,000 copies in May but by November it had fallen to 23,000 copies. Less spectacularly, Vanity Fair and GQ both lost around 2,000 in sales between October and November alone.
The article goes on to point out that the user base is still small and Apple takes a cut of 30%, so 100,000 copies need to be sold to make $60,000. It quotes that this means it takes 3 years to get a return on investment but I’m not sure how they worked that one out.
Some publishers appear to have been more successful that others. The Financial Times has a free iPad app but advertisement revenue from the iPad has topped £1 million ($1.5 milion) in the first six months.
Various industry experts are quoted but there’s a general appreciation that the best business model has still to be found, it’s a bit of a gamble at the moment and it will probably take 3 to 5 years for it all to work out.
Worth a read if you are interested in the future of media and news publishing.
I think it’s the reality of paid content in an internet, freemium world and publications have to adapt — both in content distribution and budget wise.