IPad magazine subscriptions will cost at least twice as much as print
Online journalism slashes the production costs – paper, printing and distribution – but consumers should not expect iPad, iPhone or Droid app subscriptions for newspapers and magazines subscriptions to be less, or even equal to, print subscriptions.
That’s the subject of an interesting AdvertisingAge.com article today.
Magazines are set to begin offering subscriptions for iPad editions early this month. Popular Science will be one of the first out of the box.
Magazine publisher Bonnier Corporation is setting the stage for pricing, AdAge.com says:
A year’s worth of Popular Science in print, for example, runs you $12 if you order through the magazine’s website and $10 if you find it on Amazon. A year on the iPad, however, will cost you $29.95. That’s 83¢ a print issue through Amazon, but $2.50 an iPad issue.
I really wonder why newspaper & magazine producers can’t understand K.I.S.S.? People want/expect to pay the same if not less for the digital subscription as the paper version. Unfortunately, the content producers seem to think they need to make a statement and blow enormous sums of money on eye candy. In order to accomplish this, they have to charge three – four times as much as the paper-subscription price to recoup their losses. The Wired app is the perfect example of this. Seriously, who in their right mind thought half-a-gig file size was acceptable?