Too early to say iPad will revitalize newspapers – Roger Fidler
May 13, 2010 by marek.miller
Roger Fidler
Couple of days before the INMA Oxford Tablet Summit, Forum4Editors speaks about tablets with Roger Fidler, the Digital Publishing Program Director at Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Forum4Editors: Lately, the only brand you can hear about is Apple. Do you think this could be more marketing buzz than anything else in the topic of iPad?
Roger Fidler: The same question was asked about the Apple iPhone after it was launched. Steve Jobs has proven to be a consummate marketer of the Apple brand and products. As the first mover for this new class of tablet computer, Apple has a definite advantage. It also has set the bar quite high for potential competitors. With more than a million iPads sold in its first month, Apple is well on its way to dominating the market, at least in the the U.S., for the foreseeable future. However, what no one knows now is how large that market may be. We’ll have to see if Neofonie can successfully compete with Apple and expand the market in Europe with its WeTab (formerly WePad).
Now, for the same reasons, do you think there is any room on the market for other tablets? If so, will publishers have to adjust to every single tablet that comes out?
There will be opportunities for other tablets to compete with the iPad, but I don’t believe the market will support more than two app standards. At this moment, nearly everyone is betting on Apple and Android. Android has the advantage of being an open standard that any tablet manufacturer can license. To have the broadest possible reach, publishers will need to produce editions for both standards, just as they now have to do for smart phones.
Tablets are often called “the newspaper saviors” or “the future for newspapers”. Do you consider it true? It is just another medium to read information from.
The iPad-like tablets provide an excellent platform for branded, curated packages of editorial and advertising content. However, it is too early to know if this platform will revitalize newspapers and become a profitable digital alternative to printed editions. For now, it’s just another medium for accessing and displaying information and entertainment.
The majority of information consumers have access to it through their mobiles. Why would someone need a tablet if he/she can read the same information from their cell phones?
Not everyone will want or need an iPad-like tablet. Most people who do use a tablet are likely to use a smart phone, too. And they are likely to use a computer to access information and entertainment on the Web as well. The magazine-size, high-resolution full-color displays that define the iPad and similar tablets provide a much more visually rich presentation than smart phones. For subscribers to tablet editions of newspapers and magazines, these devices will afford a more print-like leisure reading experience.
Now, it seems the role of the designers will be greater. Would you call iPad a new space for designers to develop and show their skills?
Absolutely.
Do you think iPad / tablets era will further deppreciate print newspapers/magazines?
I don’t think iPads, tablets and eReaders will accelerate the decline of printed editions in the near term. However, as these devices become cheaper and more ubiquitous, I believe we will see an increasing migration from print to digital. The challenges for established publishers will be to control the rate of migration and to ensure that their digital editions are financially able to stand on their own.
We live in times when publishers need to cut costs. iPad, seems to be the cost generator for publishers: the device itself, plus app developers, whereas producing information is still publishers’ core business. Where is the money in iPads? Can it make selling content easier for publishers? Where are the advertising possibilities?
Initially, only the larger publishers will have the resources to invest in the development of tablet editions. It will take awhile for the revenue from subscriptions and advertising to make a significant positive impact on the publishers’ bottomlines. The biggest concern that publishers now have is the bite that tablet vendors and newsstands are proposing to take out of those potential revenues. Apple says it wants to take 30% of the circulation revenue and 40% of the advertising revenue. Those are very large bites that could prevent tablet editions from becoming profitable for publishers.
Thank you very much.
Roger Fidler is a Program Director at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
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[...] and works better as a mirror than an e-reader if you try to use it in your garden. But I agree with Roger Fidler that only a few platforms or app standards will survive, most probably Apple and Android. Hopefully [...]
[...] and works better as a mirror than an e-reader if you try to use it in your garden. But I agree with Roger Fidler that only a few platforms or app standards will survive, most probably Apple and Android. Hopefully [...]