Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Should magazine publishers follow the record companies?
Anyone old enough to have been buying music in the 1980s will remember that, almost overnight, vinyl LPs and singles disappeared from record shops, to be replaced by jewel-boxed CDs.
This did not just happen. It was, I seem to remember having read somewhere, a concerted and collaborative effort by the industry to rid the world of old-fashioned, expensive, delicate and somewhat craft-based records in favour of digital, cheaper, robust and industrially more efficient Compact Discs.
An article on the uptake of tablet magazines posted by Bo Sacks in his daily newsletter has made me wonder whether the magazine industry should follow suit.
Here's the paragraph that caught my attention:
Three years after Apple unveiled the iPad and revolutionized the way consumers interact with content, tablets still account for a tiny share of magazine readership-just 3.3 percent of total circulation. Not taking into account the top-selling digital title, Game Informer, which boasts nearly 3 million digital copies, the number slips to 2.3 percent.
Perhaps magazine publishers should follow the example of the record industry all those years ago. If there are no print magazines (vinyl LPs) to buy, people will be forced to buy tablet subscriptions (CDs) instead.
Of course, there would probably be a lot of unhappy newsagents and supermarkets, not to mention distributors, printers and paper companies, but it solves the problem at a stroke, does it not?
And it would allow us to really test all those ideas about how much people love their magazines and form social bonds with them, wouldn't it?
Labels: Apple, digital magazines, digital media, electronic magazines, iPad, John Menzies Digital, magazines, Magazines and E-zines, media economics, print magazines, W H Smith, Zinio
Friday, April 15, 2011
Magazine front covers: adapt or die
The front cover is the most important page in the magazines – that's one of the lessons we drum home to students on the MA/PgDip in Magazine Journalism at Cardiff Journalism School. It's a lesson that is repeated by just about every one of the many industry speakers who visit Cardiff.
But a couple of pieces of recent research show that it's only true for print magazines on the news-stand.
Kevin Sablan's Almighty Link site carried a piece about newspaper front pages that holds lessons for any print publication going online – or probably for any online journalism, whatever the "home" platform. Seven well considered points about what a "front page" means to online readers: The front page isn’t what it used to be
I found the piece above via Adam Tinworth's blog, introduced with the comment: "I've seen this clearly in our metrics. Front pages of websites just don't really matter." Given Adam's position as Editorial Development Manager at Reed Business Information we know those metrics are extensive and reliable.
Then, as if to confirm the line of thought, Ellie Behling asked "Are publishers paying attention to what consumers want from iPad magazines and newspapers?" on her blog. Analysing a recent survey, Behling quoted Zinio's global executive vice president and chief marketing officer Jeanniey Mullen: "It's not about necessarily just shopping for the cover anymore; you might be looking for fish recipes."
This doesn't mean our insistence on the importance of a front cover is wrong; in fact while single copy sales are under pressure – or falling – the front cover of a print magazine becomes even more important. But it does underline two points:
1) what has been found to work in print may not transfer directly to a digital platform
2) if the front page can be a Tweet, a Facebook stream, search engine results, a text message, a Flipboard panel, RSS feeds or an Instapaper collation magazines need to be showing their faces on all of them.
But a couple of pieces of recent research show that it's only true for print magazines on the news-stand.
Kevin Sablan's Almighty Link site carried a piece about newspaper front pages that holds lessons for any print publication going online – or probably for any online journalism, whatever the "home" platform. Seven well considered points about what a "front page" means to online readers: The front page isn’t what it used to be
I found the piece above via Adam Tinworth's blog, introduced with the comment: "I've seen this clearly in our metrics. Front pages of websites just don't really matter." Given Adam's position as Editorial Development Manager at Reed Business Information we know those metrics are extensive and reliable.
Then, as if to confirm the line of thought, Ellie Behling asked "Are publishers paying attention to what consumers want from iPad magazines and newspapers?" on her blog. Analysing a recent survey, Behling quoted Zinio's global executive vice president and chief marketing officer Jeanniey Mullen: "It's not about necessarily just shopping for the cover anymore; you might be looking for fish recipes."
This doesn't mean our insistence on the importance of a front cover is wrong; in fact while single copy sales are under pressure – or falling – the front cover of a print magazine becomes even more important. But it does underline two points:
1) what has been found to work in print may not transfer directly to a digital platform
2) if the front page can be a Tweet, a Facebook stream, search engine results, a text message, a Flipboard panel, RSS feeds or an Instapaper collation magazines need to be showing their faces on all of them.
Labels: Adam Tinworth, digital magazines, Flipboard, iPad, magazine craft, Reed Business Information, RSS feeds, Twitter, Zinio
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Magazine retailer WH Smith does digital
Check out W H Smith's version of the e-subscription system mentioned in the previous post on the WHS site.
Not only is the cost of the digital sub more or less the same as a print sub but:
* Subscribers will only have access to duplicate copies for three months
* All issues have DRM
This is not good value. Take the costs of paper, print and repro out of a magazine and you effect big savings. If publishers, distributors and retailers are serious about digital mags they need to address the pricing.
Why do people take out subs?
* Because they want a guaranteed supply
* Because they want a discount per issue
* Because they want to hoard every copy until the attic rafters are bowed
Read what Zinio, suppliers of e-magazine software to 750+ titles, have to say in E-Commerce Times.
Not only is the cost of the digital sub more or less the same as a print sub but:
* Subscribers will only have access to duplicate copies for three months
* All issues have DRM
This is not good value. Take the costs of paper, print and repro out of a magazine and you effect big savings. If publishers, distributors and retailers are serious about digital mags they need to address the pricing.
Why do people take out subs?
* Because they want a guaranteed supply
* Because they want a discount per issue
* Because they want to hoard every copy until the attic rafters are bowed
Read what Zinio, suppliers of e-magazine software to 750+ titles, have to say in E-Commerce Times.
Labels: digital magazines, DRM, electronic magazines, subscriptions, W H Smith, Zinio
Magazine wholesaler John Menzies seeks a digital future
John Menzies, the newsagent chain, has come up with a wonderful new idea – a computerised station where customers can download digital magazines, according to a report in NMA.
To quote from the story:
Wonderful though it is to see such an old-established business marching bravely into the future, I can't help but feel that they have somehow got hold of the wrong end of the (usb) stick.
UPDATE: Next post
To quote from the story:
"The Magazines on Demand website works in conjunction with free-to-install software and enables users to download
the latest issues of magazines at any time as well as viewing, storing and searching digital magazines bought from the site ... the key feature of the system is the ability to save magazines to a USB stick."
Wonderful though it is to see such an old-established business marching bravely into the future, I can't help but feel that they have somehow got hold of the wrong end of the (usb) stick.
UPDATE: Next post
Labels: digital magazines, DRM, electronic magazines, Menzies, subscriptions, W H Smith, Zinio
