Martin Jönsson: Industry sceptical about Apple's new subscription model

The past week has Sweden and Norway has been in the focus of the global media discussions on digital subscriptions and the future of business models for dagstidningsbranschen industry. The organization, International New Media Association, INMA, gathered close to 300 participants in one of the largest conferences on this subject so far. Over the two days, visited the editorial offices in the countries, from Aftenposten and Aftonbladet to the Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, and during three days discussed the industry's challenges and responses in a seminar.

There are several reasons why Scandinavia is so interesting for the newspaper industry: this is the highest market penetration and willingness to pay in the world when it comes to digital subscriptions for the news. This is also tidningsföretagen very far ahead when it comes to developing business models and tools in order to collect and retain a high number of digital customers. A contributing explanation for it is that there also are markets with a high usage of other types of streaming services for music and film. In Sweden pay 76 percent of all users of the internet for any form of digital content and 13 percent have subscriptions for both film, music and journalism.

the world. over the past decade, lost big ad revenue digitally to global giants like Facebook and Google: only in Sweden, daily newspapers have lost about 600 million a year for the last eight years. The growth of digital subscriptions, which has taken off in earnest the last few years, has been a way to compensate for this, and something which has given new confidence to the industry. Annonsberoendet has been replaced by a business model where läsarintäkterna now account for 60-70 per cent of the revenues for many of the industry's biggest titles.

at the same time has it the giants made several attempts to access the part of the deal. Both Google and Facebook have done experiments with prenumerationslösningar and Facebook have via format as the Instant Articles and videotjänsten Watch tried to persuade media companies to publish their content directly with them, on a commission of the ad revenue. Almost all media companies have, however, rejected the services, which are simply given too little revenue.

is in the focus of the subscription and intäktsdelningsdiskussionen, however, is Apple. For several years, the Apple News has been a free aggregeringstjänst for the news, much like Google News. Now it is on to a paid subscription service, in parallel with a similar effort on the tv - and video content. The goal is to compete with services with exclusive content, which tidningsföretagens own payment services, but also Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and – perhaps above all – Amazon Prime, which had a very strong growth.

the Discussions about which companies will participate with the content in Apple's new services has been intense the last few months. Apple News has become an increasingly important trafikgenerator as Facebook has become an increasingly less important source for the large mediesajterna and the in cooperation run the risk to lose many visitors. At the same time, is Apple's conditions are hard: they take 50% of all prenumerationsintäkter. The choice has therefore become a gamble: join and get a chance to high volume but lower revenue per customer, or stand outside and run the risk that customers prefer Apple service over a direktprenumeration on the different papers. Exactly the same difficult choices, the television companies had to face.

to know on Monday, at Apple's product - and tjänstepresentation. What we know so far is that business magazine the Wall Street Journal and the site Vox said yes, and a large number of journals as well as probably even CNN, while the New York Times, the Washington Post and Netflix have declined.

the New York Times ceo Mark Thompson was very tough in his criticism of the offer: ”We as the industry must stop relying on tredjepartsplattformar to reach out with our content. It will just end up with that they have all user data, all the relationship with the customer and because they get the highest profitability – to the end will be the only content producers. I warn all the magazines from the to go with in this project.”

How good the service we get, therefore, a hint about tonight. For many clients there is a desire for a good samlingsplattform for news content, in the same way as Spotify is for music. But as long as it remains a lousy deal for content providers, there is unlikely to become a reality.