Time Inc. to Launch Maghound

Posted on October 29, 2007

AdAge.com reports that Time Inc. is launching an online service called Maghound that will let people manage magazine subscriptions online. The service is billed as a Netflix for magazine subscriptions.

After years of development, Time Inc. plans to introduce an online service next year that will offer pay-as-you-go, mix-and-match, highly flexible magazine subscriptions from a variety of publishers. Consumers using the service, to be called Maghound, will be able to pay one monthly fee for three subscriptions, with the ability to swap one title out for a new one or cancel entirely at any point.

The magazines will be discounted from the regular prices. Three magazines will cost $4.95 a month through Maghound. Subscribers can also swap out one magazine for another.

The current plan calls for offering three magazines for $4.95 a month, five magazines for $7.95 a month or seven magazines for $9.95 a month -- with about 20% of the available magazines priced at a premium.
"You pay by credit card and get charged every month until you tell us to stop," Mr. Wolfe said. "If you want to switch at any point, you can switch off Newsweek for Time or something like that. You go online and make these changes. It's a solution that really addresses more of what consumers want, which is control and flexibility."

The site is expected to sell print magazines for more publishers than just Time Inc. but Time Inc. has not yet named the other publishers in involved. Can Maghound solve the magazine publishing industry's problems? It might get more people to subscribe to magazines temporarily but in the long run print magazines can't escape the increasing financial pressure posed by digital publishing.