Thursday, May 27, 2010
Is Mobile the Next Newsstand?
It’s a good question, and one that I debated yesterday with Gregg Hano, the VP of publishing for Bonnier Corporation (publisher of Popular Science, among many other titles), and David Steinberger, the CEO of Comixology, a Web and mobile technology platform for comic book publishers. The event was the first in a three-part series entitled “The Magazine Mobile Imperative” presented by the Magazine Publishers of America in conjunction with eMedia Vitals, an online publication that serves print media executives transitioning their business to digital.
In terms of the question at hand, the available survey data present a decidedly mixed outlook. A recent CMO Council study, “Leveraging Loyalty to Transform Publishing,” found that the vast majority (92%) of US magazine subscribers still get their favorite publications in print format and prefer print in nearly equal proportions. However, as awareness of e-readers increases, a growing portion of consumers are starting to consider switching their subscriptions to mobile devices.
Consumer attitudes toward paid content are likewise in transition. As my colleague Paul Verna noted in his March 2010 “Paid E-Publishing Content: Books, Newspapers and Magazines” report (available on eMarketer Total Access):
More than 90% of online newspaper readers and publishers in North America consider news content “somewhat” or “very” valuable, according to the American Press Institute.
However, when it comes to paying out of pocket for that content, most US consumers would take a pass.
A February 2010 Nielsen study, “Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Content Online,” found that only 36% of respondents had paid for—or would consider paying for—an Internet-only news source.
In an even more discouraging finding for content owners, an Adweek Media/Harris Poll study noted that only 23% of US Internet users were willing to pay for online news.
Other survey data presented in the report reinforced this rather gloomy outlook. And yet, we have word that Wired sold 24,000 copies of its iPad app in its first 24 hours of availability (in other words, since yesterday). Granted, the Wired app benefited from a great deal of pre-release buzz, including a video that was widely distributed in the wake of its presentation at the TED conference in February, but it does suggest that consumer attitudes toward paid content, and specifically mobile paid content, are slowly shifting.
As might be expected, the magazine publishers who attended the MPA/eMedia Vitals event were both very interested in and concerned by the growing level of media consumption on mobile devices, from smartphones to tablets. The excitement in the room was palpable when Gregg Hano took the audience through Bonnier’s development of the Popular Science iPad app, which will serve as the basis for a platform Bonnier will use for its other titles. Popular Science has also been the beneficiary of some significant buzz: during his April presentation of iPhone OS 4, Steve Jobs referred to the PopSci iPad app as the “king of the hill” of iPad magazine apps (Hano did not detail the impact of Job’s endorsement but it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t result in a spike in interest).
Similarly, the audience listened with rapt attention as David Steinberger described that by mobilizing comic books and putting a vast catalog of titles in front of a large mobile audience, many of whom lack access to print comic outlets, his company’s platform has actually boosted, not cannibalized, print comic sales.
Overall, the consensus in the room was that while many magazines had failed to effectively utilize the Web to build readership and drive incremental revenues, tablets, and the iPad in particular, represent a huge opportunity to get right what they had previously gotten wrong.
