Time spin-off highlights risks facing magazines

Associated Press:

From Sports Illustrated to People to its namesake magazine, Time Inc., was always an innovator. But now when the troubled magazine industry is facing its greatest challenge, the company Henry Luce founded is struggling to find its way in a digital world.

Time Warner Inc.'s decision to shed its Time Inc. magazine unit last week underscores the challenges facing an industry that remains wedded to glossy paper even as the use of tablet computers, e-readers and smartphones explodes.

Although the new devices might seem to present an array of opportunity for Time Inc.'s 95 magazine titles, many publishers have found the digital transition troublesome. Digital editions of magazines represented just 2.4 percent of all U.S. circulation in the last half of 2012, or about 7.9 million copies, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

Although that number more than doubled from a year earlier, it's hardly gangbusters growth, considering that the number of tablets in the U.S. also more than doubled last year to 64.8 million, according to research firm IHS.

The fact that so few tablet owners are buying magazines on their devices is a concern because both ad and circulation revenue from print editions have fallen more than 20 percent since their peak near the middle of the last decade. And, according to forecasts, there's no recovery in sight.

"We have to get much better at capturing those (digital) readers," said Mary Berner, president of The Association of Magazine Media.

Before publishers can accomplish that, they need to address a number of problems, experts say. First, the range of free content on the Web has given some readers the impression that it's not necessary to pay for the digital versions of magazine stories. Also, there's no industry standard for pricing. Publishers aren't in agreement over whether to include free access to digital copies as part of a print subscription.

Tomb Raider firm denies pressure to include more violence..

The makers of the new Tomb Raider computer game have insisted there was no outside pressure to include more violence after it became the first in the series to receive an 18 rating.

Ian Livingstone, the life president of Eidos, said Lara Croft's latest adventure – her first outing in three years – features combat play with "gritty realism" as she is left stranded on a mysterious island.

But Livingstone, who received a CBE in the New Year honours list, denied the success of shooter games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto had influenced the game's developers to include more fighting scenes.

IBM to Help Build Broadband Network in Power Lines

IBM Corp. is throwing its considerable weight behind an idea that seemed to have faded: broadband Internet access delivered over ordinary power lines.The technology has been around for decades, but most efforts to implement the idea on a broad scale have failed to live up to expectations.