Malcolm Owen
Apple News+ is still not providing enough revenue to publishers, a report claims, but the platform is still assisting content producers in extending the reach of publications.
Over the nine months of the existence of Apple News, numerous reports have suggested publishers are unhappy with its ability to generate revenue. As the end of the year approaches, yet another report offers a similar view, with the service only providing modest income and relatively little in the way of benefit to publishers.
An unidentified magazine executive speaking to Digiday claims "We're happy to be on there because it's another way to increase subscription revenue, but not like it's a huge boon for our business or anything like that. It's not really relevant."
That particular publication is claiming that the $20,000 per month that it earns isn't enough. But, the gain in subscriptions is apparently just enough to keep the firm sufficiently interested in renewing its contract.
The level of success in outreach is where another publisher, Essence, is seeing positive results, with it "encouraged" by how much it has increased subscriptions since joining. The publisher added Apple News+ was also beneficial in helping grow Essence's audience in territories outside the United States.
How publications are presented to subscribers has split opinions, with the unnamed publisher suggesting it was hard to distinguish magazines between properties on the service. Essence chief content and creative officer MoAna Luu offered her magazine appears "as if it were a native Essence property."
Apple's overall control over the service is a problem to the unnamed publisher, specifically Apple's ability to serve advertising with third-party ad tracking. A way to encourage Apple News+ customers to subscribe directly is sought by the publisher — but is unlikely to occur anytime soon.
The primary concern for the publisher is how it could make money via new revenue streams on the service, and it would likely renew its contract for another year.
Throughout 2019, multiple reports have claimed that Apple News and Apple News+ are less than stellar for publishers in terms of performance. Before the launch of Apple News+, one February report indicated publishers were seeing low revenues in part due to a minimal number of ads shown alongside content.
In April, Apple was accused of giving unequal aid to participating Apple News+ publishers, with most of its assistance provided to larger publishers. In June, Apple apparently sought to refine how Apple News+ operated, following complaints from publishers over the service failing to meet promises of increased revenue.
By August, some publishers in Europe were seeing improvements in Apple News revenue, despite Apple News+ not being made available in most of the markets. Some publications saw ad impressions for April to June triple with revenue doubling, seemingly suggesting Apple's changes were working.
However, notable names in publishing like Conde Nast are still waiting for Apple News+ to be a significant earner. Speaking in November, Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch complained the publications saw an initial burst of new subscribers, but interest failed to continue.
"I hope Apple News+ is wildly successful," Lynch said at the time, "[However] I think the jury is out."
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23 Comments
Nobody has gotten this right yet including Apple. Does anyone reading this subscribe or even browse News?
I did subscribe, I cancelled. It wasn't worth it when half the stories that were blocked I could get somewhere else or just weren't worth reading. Maybe I'm not the target audience though. I recently cancelled my NYTimes subscription as well. $40 a month for Sunday papers was just too high. I can't be the only one trying to avoid being nickel and dimed by subscription services.
I read News al the time. But I dropped my initial subscription to News+ as I found that I disliked paging through magazines in the hopes of finding something interesting and that I especially disliked having to skip over page after page of magazine advertising.
I prefer the more curated experience of News, and only rarely do I stop and see an article that's only available in News+ that I want to read.
Most of the problems would be solved if Apple would simply do an Apple "Prime" subscription service with an Apple Music, TV, News, Arcade and iCloud storage bundle. Be glad to pay, say, $199 a year for it.
I'm a subscriber, but I really don't like the new UI. Since Apple bought Texture in order to launch News, why not borrow from the excellent UI that made Texture such a hit. Something simple like downloading content to read off-line was easy-peasy. Now it needs a tutorial. Yes, Texture could sometimes be slow to download, but that's because their backend infrastructure wasn't robust enough to handle the growth they experienced. Not so for Apple.
In addition, features that were once part of a magazine are no longer there. As an example, there was a feature for The New Yorker that allowed a user to "Read the cartoons first". That's now gone. In other words, the new News app is less functional and harder to use and navigate than Texture was prior to Apple closing it.
The failure of News to catch on with a large audience will stay that way until Apple realizes that it's not always the best arbiter of what constitutes a good UI and what doesn't. It may be time for them to hold a marketing session to find out what real subscribers want, not the engineering department's idea of a magazine app.