Perchè Ipad non salverà le riviste

Via TBI Research

Magazine industry advertising revenue declined an average of 12% the past 2 years (18% in 2009) so most magazines need to reverse revenue declines while managing costs or face the real prospect of going out of business if the bleeding continues.

Some believe the iPad will enable magazines to reverse course in the near-term, but we believe these expectations are way off the mark.  In particular:

• It’s going to be years for mobile ad revenue to become material.
• As a result, in the near-term magazines will need to look to subscription revenue to drive incremental profits.
• But, even if iPad sales wildly exceed expectations and users rush to purchase lots of magazine subscriptions (we don’t think they will), this will not be enough to drive meaningful revenue at most magazines.

EVEN IF IPADS FLY OFF THE SHELVES MAGAZINES WILL STILL ONLY REALIZE A SMALL PERCENT OF THEIR OVERALL PRINT REVENUE

Just like the internet hasn’t turned into a material business for most print magazines, neither will the iPad in the near-term.

We crunched some numbers using the following assumptions:

• iPad owners are early-adopters that consume a lot of content so let’s say 50% of them subscribe to two iPad magazines each.
• Magazine subscriptions on the iPad are higher than print subscriptions (most magazines plan to charge more initially), so assume an average $15 per monthly subscription.

Even if iPad sales soar past expectations and reach, say, 16 million units over the next two years total magazine subscription revenue would equal about $2.8 billion per year under the above case scenario.  That’s less than 30% of annual circulation revenue for the entire magazine industry and only about 10% of overall industry revenue (circulation + advertising).