eReader Strategy for Newspaper and Magazine Industry
With rise in awareness of eReaders, we’ve been contemplating what the affect of this electronic device could be on the newspaper and magazine industry. Now there a few things about traditional media consumers and the general eReader adoption that should be set straight. Traditional media has lost a large part of their circulation to eMedia by way of readers accessing their news online; and as personal computers, broadband and smart mobile technology adoption grew, it was clear that those reading newspapers would lessen and the frequency reads of those still loyal to print would lessen. However, in many ways the degradation of print circulation has leveled, for the most part, because functional life products have shown readers that there are other ways to easily access news information. eReaders, from what we can see of early adoption rates, are not yet seen as an easy to use functional life tool, by those still loyal to the print industry. It will be difficult to get traditional media consumers, who have not yet gone online, to adopt this technology. Where newspapers could have a chance, in the eReader arena, is with using this device to target an audience they don’t already have. Hearst has already stuck their neck out there and rolled out their eReader called the Skiff Reader, which is supported by Sprint. Hearst first spoke of their eReader activities in mid 2008. Their time to market shows the necessary investment to get it to a point where it is public-ready, but it should be known that Hearst has not, to-date, mentioned pricing or an in-store date. It would make sense that Hearst broker deals with other publishers to build a network of content, easily accessible via their eReader, regardless of geography, given the proposed expanded network footprint. In addition, this would combat one of the known issues with eReaders, being that many have content restrictions based on manufacturer partnerships. We strongly believe that the only way newspapers can stand a chance in the eReader game is through publisher-to-publisher partnerships – There is a business model here. According to some industry pundits, eReader sales will double in 2010, primarily because of the number of organizations coming to market with their version of an eReader to support their content sets, but depending on the content, this siloed approach does a disservice to the public and it is one we strongly encourage newspapers to steer away from.
The eReader phenomena may be hard for some publishers to grasp considering that they are still getting the right web to print media mix together. Many are still trying to figure out business strategies for their online properties and are trying to find their Internet value proposition. Adding another media and advertising stream may confuse the already arduous eMedia road ahead of publishers.
