Time Inc. wants all magazines on all tablets except PlayBook
updated 11:20 am EDT, Wed August 3, 2011
Time Inc serves all mags, most tablets by end 2011
Time Inc. pledged itself to tablets in a big way on Wednesday with plans to bring its entire magazine catalog to tablets. All 21 of its publications should be available in tablet form by the end of 2011. Every publication will be available on the iPad, on the HP TouchPad, as well as on Android tablets through Android Market and the Next Issue Media news hub.
Barnes & Noble Nook Color owners will also get the publisher's four core magazines, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, and Time itself, on their mini tablets later in August. Conspicuously absent is any mention of the BlackBerry PlayBook, which is the same size as the Nook.
As before, Time has both per-issue sales as well as digital and print subscriptions, with regular print readers getting digital access for free. Rather than offer up Internet-based ads, Time is incorporating its print ads into the digital versions and will start reporting the tablet data in circulations from January on.
A number of large traditional publishers now have multiple magazines on tablets, including Condé Nast, but few have made it a goal to incorporate their entire print lineup in the new realm. Higher subscription rates, Apple's insistence on a 30 percent cut, and reduced access to private information for ad targeting have been blamed for some of the resistance to a more complete plan.
Time may have a strong incentive just through relative popularity. Although it still trails well behind print, it has had "hundreds of thousands" of subscribers get the tablet edition and over 600,000 individual copy sales of the four core magazines so far.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2006
Time?
You mean people still read TIme? As a Baby Boomer, I can remember when you'd see copies of it lying about in almost any public waiting area. I just tried to recall the last time I saw it at such a location and drew a blank. Speciality magazines seem to be doing well, but the once all-powerful weekly news magazines like Time died long ago.
I can't even remember who Time's "Person of the Year" was since, in a fit of silliness, they chose "You." I just checked and that was in 2006, five years ago.