Next Issue Media, the joint venture between Time, Inc. (TWX), News Corp (NWS), Meredith (MDP), Conde Nast and Hearst, is now available for the iPad.
The product, which is being billed as “Netflix for Magazines” includes 39 magazine titles. While titles may be purchased individually, the primary offering is a $14.99 monthly “all you can eat” fee ($9.99 for just the monthly titles).
Netflix (NFLX) displaced a strong market – renting video titles – where users were already paying $10-20 per month transactionally (not to mention annoying late fees), with a more convenient, flat-fee offering. And as they've shifted to streaming, that monthly fee is below $10.
At $15 per month, you'd probably need to subscribe to 7 or 8 of these in print for it to actually save you money. And, in a world of declining print subscriptions, I can’t imagine you’ll find too many who fit that profile. And the venn diagram between those who may fit the profile and those who are iPad users is probably very slight.
This is why it's really difficult for most companies to cannibalize their own legacy products and also why consortiums usually fail. I can imagine what it might have been like to get in front of these five publishers and pitch the idea of a $3-5 all-you-can-eat offering. Or better yet, proposing that the apps be free with in-app purchases or similar.
Instead, in order to appease the five publishers in the room, they ended up going with the solution that none could object to - an offer priced so that it would be perceived as no risk. But as with most no-risk opportunities, this one seems to offer no reward. It's yet another example of print publishers creating a print-like offering with print-centric pricing on the iPad. And it's yet another example of a model likely to fail.
