Magazine Publishers Eyeing iPad as a Way to Keep Print Profitable

What can you do with the nice, large, 9.7-inch screen on Apple’s new iPad?

Well, for one thing it will be much nicer for reading magazine articles compared to smaller mobile devices. In fact, some analysts have said Apple’s new “tablet” could end up eating into the “e-reader” market currently dominated by Amazon’s Kindle, which, with its LCD screen, is totally designed with readers in mind.

Condé Nast Publishing is reportedly going to be among the first magazine publishers to bring content to Apple’s new iPad.

According to an article on CNBC, the company is gearing up to bring iPad versions of Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour to the device.

Conde Nast has reportedly already made its April issue of GQ magazine “iPad ready.” This will be followed by the June issues of Vanity Fair and Wired. And later this summer it will bring The New Yorker and Glamour to the iPad.

According to the article, Conde Nast already has an iPhone application for GQ magazine, through which it sold more than 15,000 copies of the January issue and almost 7,000 of the December issue.

“Condé Nast will be testing different prices, types of advertising and approaches to digitizing the magazines for several months before wrapping up the experiment in the fall,” the article states.

(This editor’s preference is for the Flash format – it’s really nice to be able to “turn the pages” and see the full version of the magazine using Adobe’s flash software. Plus the graphics are rendered so nicely.)

 

Conde Nast is still trying to work out the details with regard to how advertising will work.

The announcement comes just as five major magazine publishers -- including Conde Nast -- are teaming up to launch of “one of the largest print advertising campaigns ever created to promote the vitality of magazines as a medium.”

 

Leaders of five magazine publishers -- Cathie Black, Hearst Magazines; Jack Griffin, Meredith Corporation; Ann Moore, Time Inc.; Jann Wenner, Wenner Media; and Charles H. Townsend, Conde Nast -- announced the launch of the campaign at the opening day of the 2010 4A's Leadership/Media Conference in San Francisco.

The “Power of Print' campaign will begin in May and will have ads running in almost 100 magazines. The ads will run for seven months in both print and online.

Other publishers involved include Active Interest Media, American Express Publishing, Bonnier Corporation, Emmis Publications, ESPN, National Geographic, New York Magazine, and third-party sites in the food, shelter, sports, entertainment, fashion and news categories, reaching a combined 112 million readers per month. A complementary digital component will support the print campaign beginning this spring.