New Forrester Report: Consumers Weigh In On Paying For Content

[Posted by Sarah Rotman Epps]

In the past year, we've seen a palpable shift from newspaper and magazine publishers with regard to paid content--they still don't know how to make paid content work, but they know they want to try. A recent report from the American Press Institute underscores this trend: The API reports that 60% of newspaper executives say they're considering paid content options, even though currently 90% don't charge for any content online.

Consumers, though, have different ideas. In a new Forrester report, we find that most consumers (80%) say they wouldn't bother to access newspaper and magazine content online if it were no longer free (no surprise), and the rest are split about how they'd like to pay for content:

It's especially notable that, while publishers talk about micropayments so much you could design a drinking game around the word, only 3% of consumers say they'd prefer this method of payment for newspaper and magazine content.

This data suggests two things:

1. Publishers should continue to offer free, ad-supported products to the 80% of consumers who won't pay for content online; and
2. Publishers should offer consumers a choice of multichannel subscriptions, single-channel subscriptions, and micropayments for premium product access.

But one size won't fit all — consumers want choice. The need for a multichannel product and pricing strategy is further reinforced by the "what if" scenario of print being discontinued. When we asked consumers, "If the publications you read were no longer available in print, how would you prefer to access that content?" we found that no single channel dominated responses. Thirty-seven percent of US consumers say they'd prefer to access content on a Web site, and smaller percentages say they'd prefer access via portable devices like mobile phones (14%), laptops and netbooks (11%), or eReaders like the Amazon Kindle (3%). Notably, 10% say they'd prefer the anachronistic solution of PDF by email.

Again, this points to the need for publishers to provide consumers with choice: There's no one delivery platform, and no one pricing model, that will satisfy all consumers. Consumer willingness to pay is so modest — and, in general, we find it tends to over-report in surveys — that publishers need to be extremely flexible to accommodate the needs of these precious customers.

Taking Digital Music To The Mainstream: The Music Product Features For The Living Room

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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What is interesting in the current scramble for the killer online music business model is that there is an implicit assumption that the only place people would want to go from the CD is online or mobile.  The iPod heralded a new paradigm in music consumption, but it has done little to counter the impact of the CD's terminal decline and may even have helped accelerate it.

 

As things currently stand, the mass market music consumer isn’t being catered to with any form of new product and the fight for these consumers’ living room is being lost.  It wasn't too long ago that the home hi-fi system was the flagship piece of living-room technology but over the past decade, living-room tech spending has shifted firmly to the TV while the aging home hi-fi system is either gathering dust or has been replaced by a docking station. (The latter of which is an awkward attempt to make a personal device a household device, and besides, the majority of households don’t even have one).

 

The time has come for new music products and experiences that cater for the mass market and that - for the non-tech savvy majority - bring the home music experience into the 21^st century.  In our latest report ‘Taking Digital Music To The Mainstream: The Music Product Features For The Living Room’ Forrester puts forward a vision of what we think is needed. 

 

We propose that the new mass market music experience must be explicitly part of a new hardware experience that is contemporary but highly competitively priced.  Our conceptual technology is a hard drive, midi-sized music hi-fi that with a detachable touch screen display / remote control. We argue that the new hardware must:

 

• Deliver a compelling experience even if not connected: it’s just too risky to assume that mainstream consumers will have the inclination or know-how to connect a music product to a home network, even if they have one.
• Include extensive music at point of purchase: this is, we think, the crucial element.  Mainstream consumers don’t have the appetite for another format replacement cycle, so we suggest the device should effectively replace their entire CD collection and add more, all for the cost of the device.  (And yes, we know this is light years away from where current licensing values are). And in case you didn’t notice – we just invented a new music consumption paradigm here, and a new role for retail.
• Provide the tools for baby steps into the digital world: for those consumers that do connect we propose a convenient range of digital discovery and acquisition applications to encourage consumers towards the digital arena.
• Leverage telcos: we want these devices to be affordable, but to really go mass market they probably need subsidizing by a telco e.g. a Sky Songs broadband package would include the device bundled with the router.

 

Of course there are many other ways this challenge can be met, but met it must be. Unless the music industry enters the battle for the living room, it will soon lose it — and with it the mainstream music consumer.

If you are a Forrester client and would like to discuss the report in more detail then please schedule a call with our client inquiry team.

If you are press and would like more information on the report please email Press AT Forrester DOT COM

What Google Could Bring to Digital Music

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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There are numerous reports that Google is about to launch a music service.  Whether the rumours have foundation or not I think it is worth reflecting on what role Google could play in digital music and their various assets.  Here are some initial thoughts:

 

• Google is already a major player in the online music space via YouTube (in Europe, the home of Spotify, more people watch music video online than listen to streaming music)
• Google shouldn’t (and probably won’t) try to be an ‘iTunes killer’.  The bottom line is that the iTunes / iPod / iPhone ecosystem is successful within that niche, but it is just that, a niche.  The 99 cents download model isn’t a mass market proposition
• Google has its Android asset to leverage, potentially ensuring it is a truly cross platform music play
• Google is in a unique position to target music demand at the earliest possible stage i.e. when consumers start searching for music

 

The last point is where I think Google’s core value proposition for the music industry comes in.  Apple can do little about iPod owners downloading from BitTorrent (and our survey data shows they are very likely to do so).  But Google on the other hand can.  Just imagine if when a consumer searches for a song, alongside all of those Torrent results is a heavily integrated Google music offering.

 

Whether or not there is any substance in the current rumours, Google could play a major role in online music.  What will be at front of mind for them though will be learning their lessons from YouTube, i.e. not hemorrhaging cash and not getting bogged down in rights holder spats.  If they have the appetite for it Google could bring something new and incremental to the digital music equation.

Music Subscriptions wherefore art thou?

[Posted by Mark Mulligan]

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With paid music downloads falling far short of offsetting the impact of declining CD sales, next generation subscription services need to succeed if recorded music sales are ever going to come out of their nose dive.  There is certainly lots of supply side activity, with services launched or announced in the last year from, Nokia, Spotify, TDC, Sky, Virgin Media to name but a few. And the incumbents have been busy reworking their offerings (cf Napster’s new 50%-price-cut-with-MP3s play).

 

Music subscription services have a lot of history but not a huge amount of success, so what gives the current new crop any chance of survival, let alone success?  The key will be hiding some or more of the cost to the consumer and adding real value.  The bottom line is that many consumers are simply unwilling to pay for music and even fewer are interested in paying a monthly fee for it.  So success lies in making the services free or ‘feel like free’ to the end user, subsidizing the costs through savings to, or increased revenue from other core products.  TDC, the Danish telco, has pioneered this approach with its free-to-consumer service that is available only to its customers.  (A cynic might argue that Spotify is doing the same, subsidizing its free offering with VC funding!) 

 

TDC Play has enjoyed strong adoption (100 million downloads in 15 months, not bad for a country of just 5 million, and yes, that does translate to 20 tracks for every single Dane).  Crucially though, TDC reports that Play is delivering strong benefits to their core business, which in the end is what the service is all about.

 

But not everyone is having so much success giving music away to consumers (you’d think it would be a straightforward enough task right?).  Reports have  emerged that Nokia has acquired just 100,000 Comes With Music subscribers across 9 international territories, one year after UK launch.  I remain a firm believer in the Comes With Music business model and value proposition (free unlimited music on your phone and PC that you keep for ever, the entire cost hidden in the handset and tariff).  But there is not question that 100,000 subscribers after one year is nowhere near enough return for Nokia. Nokia needs to up its game, (and indeed is doing so) because if they don’t someone else will.

 

Mobile is becoming an increasingly important element of the next gen subscription services. Spotify are using mobility as they key driver for their paid offering and are even playing the subsidized game as well with a partnership with 3 in the UK.

 

There is no lack of service innovation, but there needs to be some consistency in the experimentation. For example, what value does Sky Songs deliver for 7.99 GBP for unlimited streams and some MP3s that Napster doesn’t for 5 GBP? 

 

Continued product innovation will of course be key to feels-like-free subscriptions becoming a success, but unless this is done within a consistent framework, consumers will remain largely disinterested except for the occasional service that gets its positioning right (e.g. TDC).  Whilst that would be good news for a few companies, it could be little short of catastrophic for the music industry.

Gourmet's Demise: What Forrester Consumer Data Tells Us

[Posted by Sarah Rotman Epps]

I am in mourning over the death of Gourmet Magazine. There's a revolution going on on Twitter (follow @savegourmet and search #gourmetmagazine to see how it's developing) that I've been contributing to. But I'm taking off my fan hat and putting on my analyst hat to contribute something data-driven to the conversation.

I've been looking at some new, as-yet-unpublished data that I'm using in an upcoming Forrester report on reinventing magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Here's a preview:

And here's the same question cut by subscribers to any of Conde Nast's publications:

In other words, 19% of Conde Nast subscribers think their magazine subscriptions are "surprisingly inexpensive," compared with 13% of US consumers in general. The takeaway: Conde could probably be charging more for its subscriptions.

But as we all know, subscriptions are only part of the story--advertisements account for the lion's share of revenue for most magazines. That's why subscriptions are so cheap--to keep their paid circulation up so advertisers will pay more for magazine ads. In the same survey, we ask about consumers' trust of 24 different ad formats. And while advertiser spend continues to shift away from offline media to more "cost-effective" digital media, consumers still trust print and TV ads far more than online, consumers say they trust ads from offline media (magazines, newspapers, TV) far more than they trust online media (banners, search): 20% of US consumers say they trust magazine ads, versus 5% that say they trust search ads and 4% that say they trust online banner ads [%s are top-two boxes on a five-point scale, where 1=Do not trust at all and 5=Trust a lot]. 

To quote Jeffrey Graham, former Executive Director of Customer Insight at The New York Times Company, "Advertisers are growing increasingly rational about irrational things," like relying on click-through rates on banner ads to tell them if their ads are working.

In the meantime, a beloved media brand near and dear to my heart bites the dust.

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/srepps.

Save Gourmet Magazine at www.twitter.com/savegourmet.