Check out the subscription promotion for M2 magazine on living social. They are selling an annual subscription at 68% off the cover price and they are copping the cost of postage on top of that.
While I understand the need for subscription in the mix for publishers, I do not understand why they need to discount at this level and create a dual speed supply proposition for people who could engage with their title.
Nuts.
It get’s worse.
on Cudo, the offer is the same ‘delivered to your door’ PLUS, you will also receive free access to M2 Australia on your iPad as well.
It’s probably off topic, but I think the link is there, so I offer the following comments in a broad overview sense.
The move to digital magazines is no different to what is happening with Print Newspapers. It will be a long drawn out affair that will go on for many many years.
But of course publishers have to explore the move because that’s life in a progressive and evolving society AND digital is less expensive (so far it seems) to distribute than print.
So we will see more and more of these pricing anamolies as publishers try to convince readers to move to digital by hiding the real cost of digital.
In addition, the digital thing is also being driven because the current Distribution model is not sustainable for print magazines. I doubt very much if T2020 consolidation of Distribution Newsagents will help with the issues that magazine distribution has.
If the majors are hoping for this, I think there will be disappointments.
There are already big holes where distribution by Newsagents does not happen.
Why, because the income earnt does not balance out with the amount of effort that has to be put in by Distribution Newsagents.
From my own experience of declining service by a carrier, I am led to believe that the majors cannot afford the true cost of print distribution. Therefore it becomes unsustainable and a race to the bottom.
Retail Newsagents themselves may well benefit from this in the future as magazine distribution spread is shrunk to exclude smaller shops and to be more centralised in Newsagencies and Convenience stores as well, of course, as Supermarkets.
Dennis
Thanks Dennis, have just removed this title from my shelves.