Commoditizing Content: How An iTunes Model Would Affect Magazines

All the talk about digital readers — especially the rumored  Apple tablet — comes from two places: tech nerds, who are thrilled at the possibility, and the print industry, who are chewing their nails in terrifying anticipation. Many in the industry are worried that an Apple reader will do to books and magazines what the iPod did to music: force the product to be sold for far less than it is worth, according to a new article in Ad Age

According to the story, “Apple Tablet: Magazine Industry Eyes iTunes For Print,” digital editions and online storefronts are an exciting prospect that may proliferate the lives of many struggling titles, so long as Apple doesn’t start strong-arming publishers into slashing prices. Nat Ives writes about the worries circulating in print spheres:

They saw how Apple dictated music prices on iTunes, where for a long time the world learned that every song was worth 99 cents, no less and no more. And they’ve watched Amazon exert total control over the magazine and newspaper subscriptions it sells on the Kindle, refusing to provide publishers any information about their own subscribers through the Kindle Store.

Publishers seek total control — including over pricing and customer data — in a sort of autonomy that is rare among partnerships with giants like Amazon and Apple. For the Ad Age story, executives asked to remain anonymous, speaking to the sensitivity of the issue when it comes to business deals down the line.

The possibility of an iTunes-like store for magazines would certainly be exciting for the consumer, but the print world remains wary of letting a device (and the company who creates it) control their livelihood, mostly when it comes to pricing. History has provided a valuable lesson: “Once the iPod controlled the experience and was the element that was the most dramatic improvement, the content became a commodity on the device, and the device became the experience,” said one magazine executive. And he called for solidarity to prevent such a situation:

“If publishers were to get together and agree at least on what the format would look like,” he added, “then the device companies don’t dictate so much that they define pricing and distribution.”

Check out the entire Ad Age piece here.