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New York Times sees higher circulation numbers, digital paywall smiles knowingly
Given how aggressively The New York Times pushes its digital packages -- we've long since dropped our subscription yet are still bombarded with offers -- you'd hope the paper was at least seeing some results. Well, never fear: it is. A report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) found that the Times has seen a healthy increase in circulation, with the Sunday edition selling 2,003,247 copies (up 50 percent from last year) and the weekday editions racking in an average of 1,586,757 (up 73 percent). The ABC attributes much of this gain to the NYT's addition of digital access to paper subscriptions, and we're sure the paywall, which limits non-subscribers to just ten free articles a month, has something to do with it, too.
Publishers leery of doing business with Apple
ABCi, the interactive media arm of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, has issued a new report showing that American and Canadian publishers feel that mobile technology is very important to their futures. As a result, many of these publishers are working on making content available on mobile phones, tablets, and e-reader devices. The report, covered in Poynter Online, shows that a full 60% of respondents feel that making a mixture of ad-supported free content and premium paid content available to consumers is the best way to succeed in the mobile market. With publishers finally waking up to the fact that the world has gone electronic, ABCi reports that Apple is expected to be the mobile device manufacturer with the most impact on the publishing industry in the next year. But the picture isn't all that rosy. Most of ABCi's respondents felt that Apple's iTunes business model and the lack of solid analytics available from Apple were a bad way to do business. Only 19% of those surveyed said that they were satisfied with the iTunes app business model, and a paltry 11% were satisfied with the analytics and customer data that Apple shares with publishers. The report points out that the big prize is Apple's to win, but that the company also needs to consider drastically changing its publishing business model before publishers will be happy. What do you think? Should Apple cater to the whims of traditional publishers in order to snap up the mobile publishing market, or is it the stodgy publishers that should change to fit the Apple model? Leave a comment below. [Thanks to @steverubel for the Twitter tip]
All but one Future publication saw circulation dip in 2009
[Image credit: benben] Can you guess which of Future Publishing's nine magazines didn't lose readership in 2009? If your money was with Edge, you've got our permission to give yourself a nice big pat on the back. Go ahead, we'll wait. Done? Good. Like we were saying, the UK game mag publisher saw shrinking circulation numbers in 2009 -- the same year that saw the closure of PlayStation World by Future and the shuttering of long-running US gaming mag EGM by Ziff-Davis. While Edge circulation numbers rose by (a somewhat meager) 109 readers, Games Master dropped by 6,636 (to 34,313), PC Zone by 7,666 (to 11,357), and Xbox World 360 by 5,156 (to 25,874). While those numbers might seem a bit on the low side, that has more to do with the smaller size/population of the UK than anything else (though, of course, dropping readership numbers don't mean good things for any publication house). According to the GamesIndustry.biz report, Future blames the circulation drops on "slowing sales and ad spend [advertisers spending on print advertising]." We've dropped the entire list of circulation numbers after the break (care of the UK Audit Bureau of Circulations), should you be so inclined to peruse all the stats.
