In a memo to his staff, Brian Kelly, editor of U.S. News &
World Report recently
announced that the December issue of the monthly magazine will be the last
printed on paper. Beginning in 2011, the publication will go entirely digital.
Initially, the magazine will only be available on the Internet, where it
currently has an average unique audience of over 9 million. The company is also
committed to “developing content for emerging platforms, such as iPad and Android
tablets.”
Before the end of the year, Rupert Murdock plans to launch The
Daily, an electronic newspaper that will only
be available on tablets. The price of this app will be $1 a week. Compare that
with about $5.70 a week for the print version of the Washington Post and $11.70 for The New York Times. It may make sense for newspaper customers to buy a couple tablets. Of
course, a lot depends on the quality of the content but with such a price
differential, there is a big incentive for consumers to examine digital.
For decades U.S. News & World Report was a weekly magazine, but in 2008 it began
transitioning to digital. First, it reduced the frequency of its print edition
to biweekly and later to monthly. The company expects to continue to print a
few special single-topic issues each year on popular subjects like history and
religion. In addition, U.S. News
will continue to print its popular annual guides on colleges, hospitals and
personal finance.
The U.S. News Web site currently has six channels: politics and
policy, education, money, health, auto and travel. Each is a fully formed
business unit. By working both in the vertical channels and horizontally across
them, the company has diversified its revenue beyond display advertising to
include e-commerce products, lead generation, licensing and other sources.
One of the problems with electronic information delivery is
that customers have tended to expect that everything delivered on the Internet
will be free. Publishers are encouraged by the fact that customers seem willing
to pay for information when it is delivered on tablets. Murdock believes that The
Daily can be profitable venture with a
circulation of 800,000.
Photographers should follow these developments closely and
recognize that as publications move to digital delivery there will be a much
greater demand for multimedia and video presentation that include sound and less
demand for still images. Now is the time to develop the skills necessary to
meet this new demand.