Hearst Magazines sold more than 12,000 downloads of its Popular Mechanics iPad edition since its release on July 8 and is gearing up to release many more apps this year, including app editions of Esquire; Marie Claire; O, The Oprah Magazine; Food Network Magazine; Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar.
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A look at the printed circulation numbers (from ABC) shows Popular Mechanics base circulation of 1.2 million copies, of which 1 million are paid subscribers. So 12000 downloads is about 1% of circulation. How much effort will other major publications invest in digital editions, with those sort of numbers?
Current projected iPad sales are over 2 million units already in the hands of end users. Steve Jobs (in so many words) at the iPad launch indicated that he did not expect the iPad to be used much for reading, but mostly for other uses.
Anyone who thinks digital editions will save publishing is simply not looking at the numbers. The people who will be looking at the numbers will be those wanting to do media buys for ad campaigns, and they will see a worse distribution system than internet or broadcast. If the largest publications cannot make a significant impact, then smaller publications should not even bother with digital editions.
@Gordon Moat,
I was thinking exactly the same thing when reading this — in the scheme of things 12k isn’t a very big number.
The other thought that keeps running through my head is whether all these app download tales really represent different slices of the same pool of iPad early implementers who are sold on the idea of acquiring news/information on a pad device (i.e., people who have at least $800ish to spend on this type of device and now are looking for stuff to do with it).
There needs to be a crossover point where this technology moves from the enthusiast market to the general population for any of these E-publication business models to work. I’m not sure when we should expect that crossover to happen (or be disappointed if it doesn’t), but it needs to happen.
@Gordon Moat, HDTV was a big thing at TED3 in 1990, Video Phones where available in the early 60’s – these two examples show 1) that it takes a long time to change attitudes and retool consumers and 2) that it’s taking less time than it used to.
Yes, the number is small but I’d still tend to look at trends rather than looking to cash in or out based on today’s figures.
@Bruce DeBoer, I think eMags are here to stay, but right now this is early adopter phase. Look at Gartner Group reports, and you will see tablets increasing market share of viewer content.
I think the real market penetration will be as tablet prices drop, or when publishers offer discounts on tablets with multi-year subscription deals, much like the current model that phone companies now employ with smart phone sales. Unfortunately we are not yet close to that.
It is good to watch developments now, but the reality is that anyone running a business wants to run it profitably. The revenues and profits are not there yet with eMags. Maybe when porn jumps to eMags in a bigger way, the market will take off; it was porn that really launched VCRs and DVDs. Kidding aside, the tablet prices and eMag prices are simply too high for larger market share, and until those come down I don’t expect anyone to do well in this segment.
It seems that for a week on the shelf, sales of the PM appear pretty dismal.
@gordon moat – I would assume that the 1 mil paid subs is on a monthly basis, if that is the case would it be amiss to say that the month is closed out or do we need to do a bit of math to have a better evaluation of performance.
I would be interested in seeing what the statistics are for other apps that have been out there for a longer period of time.Then again could you compare sales to that of the high end digital cameras, how long did it take for the market to catch up? This may be a bad comparison but we are talking about technology versus paper.
My next question is based on the premise that it is mostly guys that are buying PM and if they are like me, I like paper : ) Why would they buy the app, it think that market would be fairly small for the app versus other publication app.
@Ed Hamlin, If you look at the PM Media Kit, you can see the stats. Their technically savvy statistics look fairly ahead of other publications I have seen, in their readership, though it is ough to discern early adopters in the figures. Many of them download music or are computer active, and roughly 60% of their readers are men. So if anything it seems that PM readers would be more likely to own an iPad or tablet computer.
I would bet the PM website probably sees more traffic on iPads than their iPad version of the magazine. If you look at it in terms of ad placement and ad revenues, their website should do better than their eMag. I would imagine they need to entice readers to the eMag, but that means some value added, which means greater production (people) expenses to craft a unique version.
Without a unique experience, readers have little reason to go to eMags. The dilemma is that production costs would be greater for a publication, and ad revenues would be lower, so basically a cash negative bias. No magazine will want to continue that sort of expense without better return. The only draw for publishers currently is the PR value of getting the publication name in the news, simply due to making an eMag or iPad friendly version. Once that PR value goes away, I don’t see any incentive for publishers to make a special eMag version of a printed magazine.
Adobe might be of some help in the future with all this. When more integration happens in CS6 (16 more months) it will be possible to output from InDesign to various tablet formats, much like it is now possible to do ePub output, and there is device central for some mobile phone friendly content output. The output varieties need to be more accessible to reduce the labor expenses.
I agree, Thanks for the added info on PM. I just wonder if businesses these days are trying to get to the money with out the effort needed to provide the value that consumers want?
This all depends on the demographics of the magazines, I haven’t read PM in 55 years (since getting out of middle school) and know no-one who does. Do adults buy the print magazine?
My guess is that O Magazine readers will skew older and the Marie Clair audience will skew younger, giving the advantage to the Marie Clair e-mag.
Esquire should do well because of their target audience. Titles that go after the younger, tech savvy and affluent audience (both male & female) should do well. Targeted one-offs should also do well.
We’ll have to wait through several cycles to see how it shakes-out, but my guess is that some books will do well and others won’t be able to give e-zines away.
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