Tablets: Will They Hurt the Newspaper Business?

Posted on 11/29/2010 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (0)

James Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., recently told a media conference in Monaco that tablets will hurt the newspaper business. There are currently 7.5 million tablets in U.S. households. It is expected that almost 20 million will have been sold worldwide by the end of 2010, and 55 million will have been sold by the end of 2011.

The good news is that consumers seem to be willing to pay something for iPad apps, unlike with the Internet where they expect everything to be free. However, it is still unclear how much they will be willing to pay and whether that will be enough to cover costs and provide reasonable compensation for creators.

So far, the prices charged by some publishers seem to be too high. After some initial success monthly circulation seems to drop dramatically. Wired had 100,000 downloads on its first issue in June, but by September that had dropped 67% to 33,000.

For more information on what’s happening see followthemedia.com’s “Tablets Are Great, But Will They Kill Print?”


Copyright © Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.  

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