In March of 2018, Apple acquired the digital magazine subscription service Texture. In March of this year, Apple launched its replacement: Apple News+. But it turns out some publishers aren’t too pleased with the change.
After Apple made the acquisition of Texture, the company had to go around and talk to publishers again, resigning deals and working on new ways to get those publications on board with the subscription service. Apple made promises along the way, but it turns out the results publishers were hoping for haven’t quite met the mark.
According to Business Insider, multiple publishers have been unhappy with the revenue earned from Apple News+ since its debut earlier this year. Apparently Apple was projecting a huge increase in revenue, up to 10 times what they were originally getting with Texture, and that has not panned out so far:
One publishing exec said Apple projected publishers would get 10 times the revenue they made from Texture at the end of Apple News Plus’ first year. “It’s one twentieth of what they said,” the exec said. “It isn’t coming true.
Other publishers are pointing out that their revenue so far with Apple News+ is actually lower than what they were getting with Texture, and in other cases right on par with that first subscription service.
Other publishers said their subscription revenue from Plus was lower than or on a par with what they got on Texture, which was small as a subscription driver to begin with.
However, there is a silver lining. Some publishing executives have stated that Apple is actually asking for input on the service, aiming to make changes to help things improve across the board. Apple has even admitted that some users of Apple News+ are confused by the differences between free articles and paid content.
One publisher event said that they don’t believe Apple is putting all of its energy behind Apple News+, saying they are unhappy with the layout of content for news, and some executives want an easier way to convert magazine content into the app.
Apple is working on making the app more intuitive for users, and it certainly sounds like the company is trying to make changes that would not only help users, but also make publishing executives happy, too.
It will be interesting to see when these changes actually go into effect.
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