After the acquisition of Netflix of magazines in March, 2018, Apple is now planning to create its own premium news service. With the Texture acquisition of Apple, the service will offer more than 200 magazines and will be priced at $9.99 per month, combined with the new team of Apple. This means that the new Apple News app is expected to be launched in 2019 and will offer a subscription with a percentage of revenue that will be shared to the publishers.
However, this is not the first time as Apple has tried out a similar approach earlier. The tech giant has taken back its Newstand App for the Apple News while the original app was used to offer the digital versions of magazines and newspapers. The iPhone manufacturer has earlier joined hands with the New Corporation to create the iPad only news publication, The Daily.
The news Corp was eventually shut down after about two years due to the lack of audience and to create a sustainable business model. The new attempt by Apple has indicated that it is targeting s subscription for multiple magazines, similar to the company’s Music streaming service. The service will be about paying for quality news service , which is something that the publishers have been trying with the help of their ‘pay own’ options.
There are reports that the publishers will be offered a piece of the subscription revenue but so far it is not clear how much Apple will be paying out or sharing with the publishers. At present Apple takes a 15% revenue cut from the app subscriptions in the app store of the company and takes 30% portion of the regular app sales. While Apple has its own experience in news , the company surely has potential in the segment. Only time can tell what exactly Apple plans to offer and share.
Photo Credits: The Verge
