The overwhelming consensus among 350 global magazine and newspaper executives at a global media conference last week, Magazine 2.0, at the Hannover Congress Centrum in Germany: there is no profit in going digital.
Taking the pulse of the conference, which was held March 14-15, the IHT reports that only a small number of attendees raised their hands when asked if they were making more than 3 percent of their sales online.
Even in the case of Meredith Corp., which said it was gaining “significant” profit from its 32 websites, related to magazine properties like Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle, it was largely through advertising and subscription referrals, not the digital sale of what is typically a publishing company’s chief product—text.
Still, aside from commiserating, some publishers offered strategies for transforming their online businesses to become profit generators – at some point in the not-too-near future:
—One example: during a restructuring that began last year Hachette, a unit of Lagardère, began selling online subscriptions to 200 of its magazines in August. So far, 20,000 consumers had taken up the offer. But Hachette is making sales, not profit. Hachette sells access to digital facsimiles of four magazines for just $13 a month. Consumers download the magazines, which are enhanced with embedded audio and video, and read them offline. They can switch the four titles each month and there is no yearly commitment. Hachette will expand its online sales to 500 titles in France and, later this year, in Britain.
Since users are used to free newspaper and magazine content, there was not a great deal of hope among the attendees that such a path could be widely adopted. So until someone else comes up with a better way, the industry will wait for the electronics industry to save it by developing a hand-held newspaper and magazine reader. 
Related:
—Hachette To Shut Down ‘Premiere’; Will Try Online Only
—@ Media Summit: Online Publishers Hope To Compete With and Attract Advertisers With Customization
—Lagardere Media To Cut Up To 1,000 Jobs; Online Big Focus