Condé Nast revealed today it was going to be the first major publisher to have multiple titles available on an annual subscription basis on Apple’s iPad — beginning with the New Yorker, which went live Monday.
Seven more titles will go live by the end of May.
Condé Nast President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Sauerberg conceded he still had no projections on how big the business could become and said that being first by a few weeks was not really going to be crucial.
“It is less about our competitors than about how we meet consumers’ needs,” said Sauerberg. “I think it is going to be hard to predict how soon it will scale.”
Up until now, only single-copy issues of The New Yorker and the other Condé magazines, such as Wired, Glamour and GQ, were available via the iPad.
Consumers were grumbling quite loudly about the high prices, often under the mistaken notion that it was the publisher who was asking them to make a buy each week or month — at a price much higher than an annual subscription — as a way to boost publisher revenues.
In reality, it was more complicated. Apple was reluctant to turn over complete subscriber information to the media companies. Magazine publishers, realizing that a very important part of their database business was being thwarted without complete access to addresses, consumer data, etc., didn’t want to participate.
Publishers never know who is buying single copies of their magazines at the retail level, so they had no problem selling one-off digital editions either.
But the subscribers were another matter. They were a vital lifeblood to publishers, who used the demographic information they gleaned from the longer-term subscribers to market themselves to advertisers and often sold lists to target consumers.
Both sides seem to have given some ground in recent weeks over the thorny issue.
As Media Ink reported last Friday when it broke the news about Condé Nast, an additional seven Condé Nast titles that are now selling single copies on the iPad will be up and running by the end of May.
The titles will include Wired, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Golf Digest, Allure, Self, and GQ. They will be priced at $1.99 per month, or $19.99 per year.
The New Yorker will charge $5.99 per month for four issues or $59.99 per year for an annual subscription available via the iPad only.
There is a wrinkle on the pricing arrangement that represents a serious relaxation for Apple.
If the New Yorker sells an all- encompassing subscription that includes print and digitally bundled subscriptions, that will cost $69.99 per year under the new deal. A monthly subscription to the bundled offering will cost $6.99 per month.
“Apple is not selling print; anything that we sell involving print, we keep full control over the customer information,” said Sauerberg.
Hearst also said it was going to put three of its magazines, Esquire, O, The Oprah Magazine and Popular Mechanics on Apple’s iPad with a monthly subscription fee of $1.99 and an annual subscription to a digital-only edition of $19.99 per year, but it will not start until the July issues, which go live in June.
Time Inc. said it was going to offer Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated for free via the iPad to consumers who already have a print subscription. People was already offering its print subscribers free access to iPad editions for no extra cost.