Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review does the math on the Kindle, and concludes that it is “just another way for papers to lose money.” Newspapers available on the Kindle would receive only 30 percent of the revenue from the subscribers — $4.20 from a $14 subscription fee. Since there are no advertisements on the Kindle, there is no additional revenue stream. The setup means that if all of the New York Times subscribers were to switch to the Kindle, the paper would only make $52 million, enough to fund about a quarter of its newsroom costs. Chittum’s conclusion is that there is still a long way to go on the Kindle.
You cand read the blog post on the Columbia Journalism Review here.