Tag: Robert Andrews

Imagine if a national newspaper dropped its cover price and went free to readers. That’s what UK title Daily Mirror and Scottish sibling Daily Record are doing — at least, on iPad.

For their first iPad app, the publications have launched e-edition replicas that mimic the printed red-tops in every way, save for the £0.45 ($0.72) price.

Many publishers like The Guardian and FT, for their first iPad foray, launch for free on the device, often with a big advertising sponsor, in order to build audience, only to require subscriptions a few months later. Though most newspaper websites, including on iPad, are free, the typical iPad newspaper app subscription pricepoint has settled at £9.99 per month.

For the Mirror and Record, however, there is not yet any suggestion that the zero cover price is a temporary, audience-gathering exercise.

That makes this launch interesting. In a possible future where print is replaced by tablet consumption, the Daily Mirror and Daily Record just became freesheets. Former Mirror digital publisher Matt Kelly calls it “game-changing”.

remarkable move on ipad by The Daily Mirror – totally free five days a week, then the weekend editions only available in print. Gamechanger.

— Matt Kelly (@mk1969) December 3, 2012

London’s Evening Standard has already successfully gone free in print on the city’s streets, increasing advertisers’ exposure through heightened circulation, and recently moved back in to profit. Some industry observers believe only a free future is viable in an age where paid circulation is declining for most titles.

In the Mirror and Record‘s cases, the e-edition downloads are free only on weekdays — weekend editions still require payment.

But newspapers’ historic strength has been their financing by multiple revenue streams — ads and cover price. So are the Mirror and Record crazy to lock themselves in to a future where no-one pays anything for them?

Last year, the papers jointly circulated over 1.4 million printed copies per day, making £256.6 million in annual circulation revenue and £135.1 million in advertising revenue.

So, in a future in which they replaced their paid, printed newspapers with free tablet editions, the publications would be losing their largest income source.

Last year, they reached around 4.1 million readers per issue combined. But this secondary readership in a tablet world would certainly diminish, since few people will share their iPad in the same way they will share a low-cost printed paper. So even advertiser outlook may be diminished.

Also, tablet ownership amongst the Mirror and Record reader demographics are not yet at the levels of, say, The Times.

However, there is one big benefit that likely rides above all others for the titles — any free downloads they do get will be added to their declining print circulation. That is because, while native-looking tablet apps don’t count toward ABC data, e-replica distribution can be pitched, by canny ad sales staff, as extra circulation.

What we are likely seeing is the iPad being used to prop up circs, more than the definition of a whole new business model in its own right.

All in all, this is likely a smart first move for publisher Trinity Mirror to gently build up a tablet audience and stabilise its declining print base. When readers open the app — which, by virtue of being a replica, was likely cheap to build and which requires zooming to read text easily — they are asked by Apple to share their name, email address and post code with the publisher.

That information can be used to target future promotions — perhaps future subscription invitations?

Many a publisher tweaks its tablet and mobile business model along the way, and I would be surprised if Daily Mirror and Daily Record are yet committing themselves to a free future forever.

 

via paidContent http://paidcontent.org/2012/12/03/game-changing-a-free-future-for-mirror-record-other-papers-on-ipad/

Note to NBC – when you give viewers the opportunity to program their own live Olympics schedule, they will gladly take up the offer.

Although both NBC and the BBC are broadcasting multiple simultaneous live events on the web, the BBC is also pushing those streams out through up to 24 new channels to living-room TVs.

Seventeen million people have used this BBC “Red Button” to watch those streams for at least 15 minutes over the last week, the corporation says.

That means around a quarter of the UK population has delved beyond primary linear TV, toward narrowcast live sport.

What does this tell us about the nature of live, prime-time, linear broadcasting versus narrowcasted alternatives… ?

1. Super-serving slices thick

Firstly, whether they are carrying high-profile or esoteric, little-supported events, all 24 of those channels are being used…

Every one of the 24 channels has seen 100,000 users at some point, according to BBC Sport and London 2012 product head Cait O’Riordan. Although the sheer breadth of simultaneous options might have diluted the audience for each, it appears to have held steady – 100,000 is a considerable audience for narrowcast events.

2. Even bigger than the web

In the same period, the BBC Sport Olympics website has clocked up 18 million unique browsers, peaking at eight million from the UK. That means more UK viewers are engaging with their living-room Red Button than with the website.

The web has become acknowledged as the uber catch-up, choice and depth platform. Audiences just hadn’t yet appeared conditioned to expect, on their TV, the same number of choices presented online…

But the BBC is blurring the platforms. Although all 24 BBC Olympics live streams are being streamed on the BBC’s website, the same IP streams also arrive on the BBC’s Virgin Media and connected TV Red Button platforms.

3. Narrowcast is surviving broadcast onslaught

The BBC has devoted excellent blanket coverage to the Olympics. Three of the UK’s primary linear channels – BBC One, Two and Three – have all but shelved their daytime and evening schedules in place of live events, analysis, interviews, highlights and magazine features. There may be enough material being pumped out of these core channels to satisfy anyone – even those who have missed an event are likely to find highlights looping around any minute now.

But that makes the 24 streams’ performance even more impressive, proving that there is always a passionate audience wanting to go deep, no matter how niche the interest.

4. UK mobile viewing matching U.S.

Last week, an under-pressure NBC said 45 percent of its Olympics IP video streams were to mobile and tablet devices. BBC figures show a similar ratio, with a combined 41 percent. It is fascinating to see mobile viewing consistently high in two entirely different timezones…

via paidContent http://paidcontent.org/2012/08/06/bbcs-multi-stream-tv-olympics-shows-how-narrowcast-can-go-large/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pcorg+%28paidContent%29