After more than two months of privately and publicly complaining about Apple’s new iPad subscription policy, evidently to little avail, magazine and newspaper publishers are diverging over whether to sign up.
The print world was upset that Apple wanted to keep 30 per cent of all subscriptions sold through the iTunes app store and 100 per cent of the information about those subscribers.
Some made repeated pilgrimages to Cupertino in hope of getting Apple to change its mind, and Hearst even hinted that it got a special deal when it said this week it would sell $1.99 monthly subscriptions to apps for Esquire and other magazines.
But neither it nor other publications got any break, someone with knowledge of the key talks told me.
Instead, publishers were told that if they could convince subscribers to volunteer their names and addresses, perhaps in exchange for better terms, then the publishers were welcome to the data.
That was enough for UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, which also signed on this week. An executive there said half of the users of a free test version of a Telegraph app had been willing to give personal information directly.
Other publishers have figured out how to steer print subscribers to free versions of their apps and are going that route. Time magazine joined their number on Sunday.
Conde Nast said recently it is slowing plans to put more of its magazine titles on the iPad. But the New York Post said on Thursday that Conde Nast’s New Yorker and seven other big titles will have subscription offerings by the end of the month.
If those do well, competitors may feel the need to switch and join them on the iPad after all.
