Here is a report that tablet devices like the iPad are not delivering the predicted online magazine subscriptions. I have been saying for some time that these new devices have the potential to save the ailing magazine and newspaper industries. But I think it is too soon to say that data from essentially just one or two publishers is a trend.
Note that I used the word "potential" when talking about this. The publishers could easily screw up this opportunity to save themselves. The article talks about the big drop in online sales of Wired magazine. But here is the problem. A lot of magazines have decided that declining attention spans means that a magazine should look like a Web site--filled with short, fluffy news items. You have to plow through dozens of pages of trivia before getting to two or three mildly interesting articles. Why pay for that?
A second problem is the cost of subscriptions. Publishers are still struggling with how to wean their operations off the relatively high revenue of ads plus subscriptions to a much lower revenue stream online (but note that distribution costs approach zero). So many digital magazine and newspaper subscriptions cost nearly as much as the paper version, which makes no sense at all.
I suspect the successful digital publishers of tomorrow will be start-ups--firms that start with a business model tailored for tablet devices. Many of the old line publishing firms are going to go the way of buggy whip manufacturers.