Sports Illustrated today is expected to begin selling its first-ever digital subscription apps, which will be made available to smartphones using Google’s Android system.
Up until now, only single issues could be purchased.
The move, marking one of the first times a major consumer magazine is selling long-term subscriptions via an app, is expected to tie in with the publicity surrounding next week’s SI swimsuit issue, traditionally the title’s biggest-selling issue of the year and one that attracts an enormous amount of digital traffic.
Last year, SI generated 2.3 million unique visitors to its free Web site on the day the swimsuit issue debuted, and had more than 1 million consumers download a free app with the issue.
On the newsstands, the magazine traditionally sells more than 1 million copies, priced this year at $6.99 a copy. The swimsuit app on iPhones and Android phones will also sell for $6.99, a spokeswoman said.
SI was not officially confirming anything about its digital subscription plans but yesterday it sent out an alert to the media inviting them to an important “digital announcement” from Time Inc. Chief Digital Officer Randall Rothenberg, Sports Illustrated Group Editor Terry McDonell and SI President Mark Ford.
Sources say they are expected to begin making the app available to smartphones using the Google Android system by this afternoon, shortly after the press conference ends. The move comes only two days after Time Inc. unveiled plans to partner with Hewlett-Packard on digital subscriptions when it introduces its TouchPad tablet this summer. That will make subscriptions available for SI as well as Time, Fortune, and People.
Up to now, only single-issue copies of the magazine could be sold via an app. Last June, as part of its leadership push, SI thought it had developed a plan to begin selling digital subscriptions on the iPad, but talks fell apart over the question of how the subscriptions would be sold and who would keep track of the data.
Traditionally, magazine publishers use name and address info from subscribers to build out a lot of demographic information that they can use for marketing and advertising. Apple wanted to keep that information to itself.
The Daily, the News Corp.-owned publication that debuted Feb. 2 exclusively on the iPad, is among the few that has worked out a subscription arrangement, selling yearly subs for $39.99 and weekly subscriptions for 99 cents.
Even as Newsweek/Daily Beast ad sales people begin fanning out across media agencies to show off the new Newsweek prototype this week, turmoil continues in the editorial ranks.
Lauria loose
Peter Lauria, a former New York Post media reporter who jumped to the Daily Beast, is apparently out after only 10 months. His last story appeared on Jan. 25 and insiders say they have not seen him in the office for several weeks. He is said by some inside to be trying to hammer out a severance agreement.
Calls to his old office phone at the Daily Beast were answered by Nick Summers, the former “Off the Record” media columnist for the New York Observer, who joined the Daily Beast only last week. “I don’t know what happened to Peter, but this is my number,” Summers said.
Insiders say that the relationships between Lauria and some of the top editors at the Beast, including Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, have been strained for some time. In June, Lauria landed a big scoop when he uncovered details of Viacom boss Sumner Redstone‘s infatuation with an all-girl band, the Electric Barbarellas.
Lauria reported that Redstone had spent money and granted stock options to the lead singer while trying to land the group a record deal and an MTV reality show.
The story became an overnight sensation and landed Lauria on the top TV morning show, NBC’s “Today Show,” to talk abut his scoop. While some insisted Brown was happy over the story, others insisted the editrix was a bit jealous and felt she should have been the one to go on the show.
By the time the Daily Beast merger with Newsweek was announced in November, there were more signs of strain. While almost everyone at the Beast was overjoyed by the pending merger and gave Brown a standing ovation, Lauria began asking hard questions, wondering how the Beast, said to be los ing $10 million, could be combined with the weekly that was losing $20 million and come up with a winning, money- making formula.
Lauria also seemed to be getting squeezed out by the plethora of media reporters at the paper. Aside from Somers, who is ostensibly covering national affairs and culture, but whose most recent specialty was media, Brown also hired former Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz to be the DC bureau chief.