The only surprise of course in these figures is the speed of the decline. What this figures suggest is the honeymoon for the digital magazines was all but over in the first month. So far iMagazines have proven about as popular as the old CD-ROM eMagazines. You couldn’t even call them a fad or a fashion. They are little more than a novelty item. Bling designed to decorate the iPad just long enough for the consumer to say been there done that. (See The Magazine of the Future? We have seen it all before.)
What is interesting about these iMagazine circulation figures is how they contrast so dramatically with the magazine publishing industry’s viewpoint on the potential for e-Readers and tablets to reinvigorate their revenue model.
Take a look at a couple of reports from the Magazine Publishers Association and you’ll quickly see what I mean.
The first is the 2010 handbook in which we discover of page 22 the revelation that 4 out 5 prospective e-reader want to read magazines on e-Readers but only if it is available at about half the price of the printed edition. It also provides us with the statistic that there are over 8000 magazine web sites.
The second is a report by Oliver Wyman on The new digital future for Publishers? This document – heavy in statistical analysis – provides evidence of how the demand for interactive periodicals could drive $1.3 Billion in incremental revenues into the hands of the publishers if they can get the execution right.
The challenge the publishers face is that all the statistical evidence suggests that eMagazines and iMagazines should be a winning strategy – just as the webZine should have been a winner – but the hard commercial reality is the positive market research data the industry continues to gather just isn’t translating into sustainable long-term revenues.
The newspaper industry is facing the same challenges (See The Daily Deja Vu?) and the reason for this is very simple. The just don’t see that the iPad is now the magazine and they are just providing content. With the advent of the iPad they have moved a couple of notches down the industry value chain from magazine publisher to content developer and that’s why just like the iPod hasn’t saved the music industry the iPad won’t save the Newspapers and Magazines.
December 30th, 2010 → 7:06 pm
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