HUGE NEWS:Sports Illustrated’s Bundled Android Subscriptions
By JEREMY W. PETERS
February 13, 2011, 9:00 pm
TIME, via PR Newswire
mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com
Time Inc. has a memo for Apple: We’re not waiting at the altar forever. We have Google.
As magazine publishers continue their discussions with Apple to sell subscriptions on the iPad, Time Inc. has begun selling subscription bundles that include apps that run on the Android tablet software from Google.
Sports Illustrated now offers a $48-a-year subscription that delivers the magazine to a reader’s mailbox, tablet, smartphone and computer. Current subscribers will have free access to the magazine in all digital forms.
Executives at Time Inc., which also publishes People, Time and Entertainment Weekly, said that they hoped to extend the Sports Illustrated bundled subscription model to other magazines soon.
Offering subscriptions across a variety of platforms at one price has been a major point of focus for magazine publishers as they retool their business models toward earning a bigger share of their revenue from consumers. Sports Illustrated is the first magazine at one of the major publishers to do so.
Selling digital subscriptions has become a priority because consumers balk at the notion of paying $5 for magazine applications each month.
“Without a subscription model, we haven’t been able to reach all the people who want the magazine,” said Terry McDonnell, editor of Sports Illustrated. “Now there’s finally a way for that to happen.”
But as large as the Android tablet market could prove to be, not having a way to sell subscriptions for the iPad is still a big headache for publishers.
“We love Apple. We love the iPad,” said Randall Rothenberg, chief digital officer for Time Inc. “We have a great desire to sell subscriptions in the iTunes store. We continue to have conversations about that.”
But Mr. Rothenberg offered a stick with that carrot: “Those stores that lock us out, well, it just means that other stores are going to get more traffic, more buyers.” |
