- It’s hard to overstate the excitement felt across the magazine industry following the unveiling of Apple’s iPad on January 27th, 2010. After nearly decade of hemorrhaging revenues, indiscriminate layoffs and non-stop cutbacks, hope had finally returned. In the eyes of publishers, tablets offered not just a chance to abandon PDFs and “online editions”, but an opportunity to re-establish the magazine experience and use their extensive production capabilities to outmaneuver leaner, web-focused competitors. After four and half years, however, this hope appears to have been more mirage than miracle.
MIsses the elephant in the room: nobody gives away their digital magazines to print magazine subscribers. This blows my mind. The entire publishing industry feels entitled to charge subscribers twice for the same content and then act offended and worried when their subscribers tell them to pound sand. Of the magazines I get or have tried, all of them have a "digital edition" and all of them have no problem charging me an additional fee PER ISSUE to view the same ephemera through a janky web interface. And nobody sees a problem with that. Digital magazines are, at best, an imitation of print magazines. Unlike what the article says, the ads are all right there, front and center. Yeah, there's videos and stuff but it's all BTS "here's how we did that photoshoot" bullshit. None of it is content that stands on its own. And the entire publishing industry is somehow offended that they can't shake their customers down twice. If they instead took a "Daily Show" approach where the online content was free to print subscribers and not only duplicated what was available in print, it augmented it, they'd get further along. Unfortunately digital magazines are a sad attempt to cash in twice on the same content. Thus, they deserve to die.
What I find truly baffling is the recent efforts a subscription of mine has taken to convert me to a digital subscriber. They won't give me the digital edition for free which, as you said, is the same content with videos of how they did a photoshoot or other content that didn't make the print edition for a good reason, like bad DVD extras they had to stuff in because it's expected. Won't this just hurt their print subscription base and hasten the decline of print media? What is the rationale behind this? I like my magazines. I get solid content at what is often a dollar an issue as a subscriber. I don't like reading long articles on a glowing screen with flashing ads.
In the entertainment industry, you call it a second screen strategy: you want to engage your viewers online as they watch the boob tube, so you create content designed to be enjoyed in tandem with the main show. I think that's what they're going for: extra bits and bobs that make the magazine more awesomer. Problem is, you start out by duplicating the magazine, and duplicating it badly. Then you add extraneous bullshit on top of that - when really what you want is "more to explore" and the like. Finally, you charge money for your extraneous bullshit instead of recognizing that the online portion is a loss-leader to increase the value of your premium product. And then you go "what went wrong?"
If you don't buy a magazine in an airport, it is an object that you leave on the coffee table, or in the bathroom. You read an article or two when it arrives or when you bring it home, then you let it lay around until you have enough time or are bored enough to peruse it further. This just isn't going to happen on a tablet. When you pick up a tablet, you have notifications and the web begging for your attention. A stale magazine issue sits quietly behind them.
I remember buying digital magazine once. Each individual article was a 150mb download. I assume things have improved since then? At the end of the day its words and images. If people arent buying its because the content isnt worth the price, the delivery is wrong or the competition is too strong. Up your game or go home.