“When Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, unveiled the iPad late last month, the big question among media executives was how it would transform their businesses,” Kenneth Li reports for The Financial Times. “Now they have at least two answers and a tangle of fresh questions.”
“Apple scored an early hit with the debut of an online bookstore to accompany the arrival of its digital tablet, in the process rewriting the economics of the e-book industry. But the device’s ability to transform other media segments will be more challenging,” Li reports.
“Apple answered one question by acknowledging that it wanted to go beyond the iBookstore that Mr Jobs unveiled last month and construct a well-stocked online shelf of newspapers and magazines, according to executives,” Li reports. “Discussions about selling publications through the store have stumbled on key issues.”
“Mr Jobs, who looked ‘much healthier in person’ than he did on stage a week ago, according to one publishing executive, and whose health has been the subject of speculation in recent years, spent the first week of February courting publishers and the news media in New York,” Li reports. “Over three days, he met executives and reporters at the New York Times and News Corp. He had private meetings with Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, and about a dozen editorial leaders at Time Inc, including Ann Moore, chief executive.”
“Mr Jobs articulated his belief that a ‘functioning media’ is vital to a ‘functioning democracy’ and how his ‘gorgeous’ device would help safeguard that role. ‘It sounds good to hear that from someone who’s making that kind of money that what you do is invaluable,’ says one person with knowledge of the meetings, ” Li reports. “Still, Mr Jobs has been unable to shake off the suspicion among publishers that what he terms the ‘the most important thing I’ve done’ could also come to represent the most important issue publishers will have to deal with in their careers.”
Li reports, “The question haunting publishers is whether they will suffer the same fate as the music industry, which was hit by Apple’s 2003 deal to unbundle the album format by offering downloads of individual songs via iTunes.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Pop, Rock, Country, Hip Hop, etc. music naturally breaks down into the smallest salable unit: The song; otherwise known as a “Single,” which predates the “album.” Magazines’ and newspapers’ smallest unit is the edition, so — since we highly doubt and haven’t heard that Apple is proposing micro payments for individual articles — there is very little similarity to the music business. Apple simply took the music industry back to where it started: Single songs, before the bundle the industry dubbed “the album” was developed to get more from you for less. It’s up to the music industry to adapt to a business model in which the customer has regained their rightful power to pick and choose, not be forced to buy a $16 plastic disc in order to get the one or two songs they actually wanted. Simply put, music industry, make better songs and you’ll sell more music. Also, you do not need to collect songs for a year or two until you have 12-15 of them. That’s outdated thinking. Now, you can release songs as they’re finished (as some, but not enough, artists have already learned).
Also, unless Josh Quittner is capable of selling out Madison Square Garden for people to listen to him read his own TIME Magazine articles (and buy the t-shirt), we’re quite certain that, since they help immensely in driving it, Apple understands that the massive additional revenue stream that the music industry enjoys (concerts, videos, DVDs, and merch) does not exist for publishing.
Right now, publishers are giving away their content for free. Pretty much the same end result as the music industry was stuck with; the only difference being that customers were taking it for free. Apple is providing a way for content creators to actually get paid on what sounds like are pretty good (70/30) terms. Periodical publishers and their employees should welcome that with open arms.
The music industry was not “Hit” by the iTMS. It was saved, practically against its will. Publishers should be so lucky.
The management of these publications should have been working on this project a long time ago. What have they been doing for the last five years, hoping that the Internet was some kind of fad?
Pay for newspapers and magazines? Maybe at $5 a year max for those that interest me, but there is far too much free news on the internet to actually pay.
Throw in ads if you want – just don’t ask for my credit card number.
I wonder how one would unbundle peodicals sold as a subscription model through iTunes. I don’t think they are worried about the blunbundlimg, but the flat rate pricing that the iTS ultimately put on songs (which apple ultimately folded on, once the store had matured). I’m betting they are worried that their content will be treated by apple as just another thing that is used to sell iPads, much like songs are to iPods.
However, I would pay a small fee to have a collection of all of Charlie Brooker’s articles and videos/shows collected for me – regardless if it was his articles in the guardian or his work on newswipe – maybe unbundling is tracking the work of authors, rather than the work of a magazine or publication?
Newspapers are on their way out…… at least the ones not in a major metropolitan area…….
This sounds JUST like the music business idiots years ago…. they refused to admit they were dying….. and played the game of iTunes possibly being a bad thing…….
Just like their music counterparts… newspapers and other print producers need to come into the technology age
How much does it cost to print and distribute a magazine and will this equate to much less than 30% of the cost of the end product. If all they are worried about is there bottom end pass the cost onto the advertiser for allow them to use interactive adverts ( links and video ect ). Why are they worried that the magazines are going to be broken up into articles and sold seperatly that is just idiotic.
The wave of change is coming my friends and if your not on it you will be swept under it.
Certain magazines I’d happily subscribe to. Newspapers? Not a chance. Books? Yes. Comics? Maybe. But not newspapers.
You won’t subscribe to newspapers, etc. ultimately. It’ll be authors that you subscribe to. That’s what they are worried about. A “producer” is even less necessary in the print world than in the music world.
Just think….. rather than paying $6.00 for a magazine littered with adverts and a lot of stories someone may not be interested in……
We might be able to pay $0.50 to read an article we ARE interested in…. and they could even throw in an advert or 2….
furthermore, unlike an audio album, books cannot be unbundled and remain complete. The work stands together as a whole. There are very few record albums (Tommy, Dark Side of the Moon, etc) which require remaining intact for a complete listener experience. Hence the al la carte model which works just fine for music purchases.
dd
I think I would subscribe to newspapers and magazines myself with the iPad. It’d be nice to see everything in color, and easily readable, and more importantly, searchable. Think of how nice it would be to get your home-town paper when you’re out of town, or if you’ve moved away but still like to keep up with what’s happening back home.
It’d be great having gardening magazines and the like on an iPad, and especially nice if they added video “how-to” articles that are impossible with a paper product, all easily searched in one easy place.
In the fashion magazines and Vanity Fair, the ads are definitely part of the desired content.
As far as the record labels, it’s as if you saved a man from drowning but he hates you because he can’t swim. Go figure.
Music was not originally “songs” and “singles”. In it’s earliest form, music was a drum circle around a fire. These sessions lasted much longer than 4-6 minutes at a time.
The smallest most basic unit of music is a single drum beat.
“…the same *fate* as the music industry?”
What nonsense! The music industry should kiss Apple’s corporate ass for saving theirs.
Well said MDN. Why are publishers still agonising over an inevitability? I don’t recollect Kodak crying so much as looking where else in imaging they could find revenues when film began caving to digicams. Print is dead except for a smaller specialist press. News doesn’t belong to anyone. Only the reporting does and when you decide to print that its shelf life may be over even before it’s sold because breaking news does not honour print deadlines.Much better to accept Jobs’ offer since it is the only coherent strategy from anyone. Even with iBooks or iPublish, I don’t see traditional news or mag formats lasting out the decade. I used to buy maybe 15 to 2 mags a month a few years ago. I haven’t bought one for 4 years. There’s no point. I get the latest product news untainted by the need to please advertisers and multimedia content too.
So much more that could be said here but let’s just watch this long foreseen train wreck as it happens. What comes out the other end has got to be better and it may even be ad-free, like the songs and books on iTunes and iBooks! heh heh. but it’s true. Let’s have no ads anywhere. EVERY thing will cost about 10 to 20% less. And we can enjoy what we pay for without the distracting noise pollution of ads. Amen to that!!
Simple answer, if you don’t like the deal, go your own way. Write and app for your publication, stick with paper, what ever. Just don’t bitch that the lifeline you’re being offered is the wrong color.
Print media magnates need to take note of the floatation device located within arm’s reach. It is entirely up to them whether or not they make use of it. The value of print is plummeting as people are perfectly willing to pay nothing for something with only slightly less production value or, in some cases, an online version of exactly what other customers pay for in print. You have a device and an online ecosystem to exploit. I suggest you get off your asses and think about “how” instead of “if”.
The main problem with newspapers and magazines (not all, of course) is that the content is very dated in this internet savvy world. I haven’t bought a MacWorld, or other tech sort of magazine in years because I can see it all weeks before on line. Thee same is true with newspapers. The difference there being in depth reporting that one doesn’t get on TV or Radio and not even on line. All these publications need to create product that reflect the world we live in, not the world of 20 years ago.
I buy magazines, and save them, and use them for references all the time. I have binders, and boxes, and stacks full of them.
I saw the iPad and looked at my office and visualized all that paper gone and I was sold.
I also imagine having all those hundreds of pounds of magazines and books with me in a 1.5 pound device (searchable no less) and I get very excited….. any publisher that can’t see that is a moron…
Yeah, the music industry was *saved* by Apple. It was “hit” by Napster.
I’ve been a subscriber of Macworld magazine for years, since well before Jan ’94, and I can’t wait to stop receiving hardcopies and have it download to me via iTunes every month.
Likewise, I recently bought six Missing Manuals, and these books are thick and heavy. I would gladly repurchase electronic copies that I could carry w/ me anywhere and instantly search.
I agree, anybody could have created an iPad, but no one did ’til Apple, because it’s the combination of hardware _and_ software. I just love the way pages turn on it, and can’t wait to get one!
@ ET
Now imagine that extrapolated to all those millions of magazines, textbooks, technical manuals, etc… that lay in piles everywhere, all vanishing. All those trees can go right on living, and instead of thumbing through tables of contents, indexes and appendices, you simple enter a search term.
Yes, I love books. I love paper in my hand. But I love the ones that are called The Lord of the Rings, not How To Operate Your Kenmore Dish Washer. Books that mean something personal are wonderful, but disposable magazines are just wasted pulp. We can do better. And we will.
I can’t see myself purchasing the New York Times in any format.
I have already decided on my first eBook purchase – iPad – The Missing Manual by David Pogue.
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Fitting, I think.
-c
You may be onto something there, the back catalog for reference. Old, long gone titles, or authors who have since left a publication.
I would fork over bucks for a CD or DVD with PDFs of Galen Rowell’s or DeWitt Jones’ articles in OutDoor Photographer for example.