iTunes not a money maker and wouldn’t be for news

By Michael Becker | Published: January 19, 2009

The other day, I spent a good half an hour jot­ting down my idea as to what an “iTunes for news” would really look like. Now, after read­ing a post by Pat Thornton, I’m start­ing to think I wasted my time.

Thornton points out that Apple has stated that iTunes doesn’t turn a huge profit. The pro­gram and the store serve a larger pur­pose: to get peo­ple to buy iPods, a pro­duce on which Apple makes a big­ger profit.

So we could assume that a sim­i­lar online store model for jour­nal­ism would also not turn much of a profit. So why do it? What about the eco­nomic side of jour­nal­ism is it going to save? What more prof­itable prod­uct will the iTunes for news drive con­sumers to buy?

Also, a new thought, with most of the country’s jour­nal­ism col­lected in one, easy to search spot, cen­sor­ship would become damnably easy. Not good for the health of a democ­racy, if you ask me.

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  • Michael_Josefowicz
    Q: what can newspapers sell? A: Anything their readers/fans will buy.

    I picked this up at the Buzz Machine yesterday..
    "When I was last in London, I was shocked to hear that the Telegraph makes a third of its profits from merchandise sales: wine, garden sheds, and hangers (honestly). The Wall Street Journal has started selling wine."
  • I agree that newspapers can sell anything they want to to make a bit of extra money, but that sort of secondary market exists for iPods and iTunes as well (with all the accessories and addons and gidgets and gizmos you can buy).

    I'm still wondering, if we take the iTunes model and apply it straight to newspapers and assume that the "iTunes for news" is meant as a gateway to get people to buy some more expensive product, what would that product be? Could we see a partnership between major news companies and an eInk reader manufacturer? Between the MSM and Amazon's Kindle, Sony's eReeader?
  • Michael_Josefowicz
    If the report I quoted is correct, stuff accounts for 1/3 of its profits for the Telegraph. Not sure about the "bit of extra money" bucket.

    Consider the NYT. They probably have the highest percentage of readers, as opposed to scanners, of any mass market newspaper. Instead of just doing the book review, why not curate the best books. And sell those books to their readers.

    Channel conflict? Not likely in a world of BN and Amazon. My sense is publishers, most especially the publishers of "serious" non fiction would have cheap access to their audience. I wouldn't be surprised if NYT could own the serious non fiction sales channel. Maybe a branded channel at Amazon? or at B&N? or even best (from my POV) do an deal with independent bookstores. Buy at NYT website, pick up at your local bookstore. The tech is not that hard any more. Imagine book pitches that go with relevant news stories. or NYT people pushing their own titles.

    Sounds like win-win-win to me.
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