The Scientific American Controversy: a Q&A with NPG's Steven Inchcoombe

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Publisher defends price increase, says only a handful of subscriptions have been lost

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 02/25/2010

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London-based Steven Inchcoombe, Nature Publishing Group’s Managing Director and President of Scientific American, has weathered a storm in the past year, having chosen to increase prices for libraries dramatically for 2010—almost seven-fold in print, with the electronic "site-license price at 10 times the cost of a print subscription," according to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC).

Similar protests came from the Oberlin Group, representing small colleges, citing resistance to STM-style pricing. But Inchcoombe was unbowed, asserting that the magazine would add value and that price changes were needed.

[Site license access list prices for institutions start at $700 for community colleges and $1000 for institutions with science FTE under 500. List prices are based on the type of academic institution, their FTE and their science FTE. Institutional print prices are $299 for corporations and higher education institutions; $69 for school and public libraries.]

What’s happened since? LJ posted several questions via email for a Q&A.

Can you characterize the impact of the change in terms of numbers of library subscriptions (both public libraries and academic libraries) and amount of revenue?

We’ve only lost a handful of Scientific American institutional print subscribers through the transition. Libraries canceling multiple print holdings is a wider industry trend. We have already received a number of orders for the site license product, and more than 60% of those customers are new to Scientific American. From a business perspective, the new site license product is already stronger than the previous EBSCO offering. The transition is still ongoing, and many institutional customers are seeing out their existing online subscriptions with EBSCO.

Librarians are increasingly analytical when managing their collections, and consider more than just the top line price. Usage in terms of cost per download and editorial quality are also important. We’re confident that on this basis Scientific American still represents excellent value as a library purchase.

Even if you may have lost some library subscriptions, does it seem to be a necessary business decision?

Yes, it was the right business decision. NPG is committed to Scientific American and its future and to ensure that, it is prudent to price content at sustainable levels.

Has the decision gained any praise from library customers—if so, what have they said?

While clearly we have received criticism about the new pricing structure, other indications have been positive. Our library customers have been complimentary about the usefulness of the nature.com site license product for researchers, compared to the previous PDF offering on the EBSCO platform.

We’re not complacent, but we are encouraged that there is demand for the improved site license product on nature.com. We expect that demand to increase as we continue to develop Scientific American editorially and in terms of functionality.

What do you think are the most significant ways content has improved? What else might be planned?

The editorial team has already made some changes to Scientific American content. The web-only multimedia feature "Powering a green planet" is an example of the type of rich content we want to increasingly provide for Scientific American readers.

The appointment of Mariette DiChristina as Editor-in-Chief, and an expanded editorial advisory board, position Scientific American well to continue evolving. Mariette has a strong editorial vision of what the magazine will be going forward, and you should expect to see further developments over the coming year.

We are already providing an improved service to library customers. Site license access to Scientific American on nature.com includes full-text HTML articles with images, which were not previously available to institutional customers. Each month, the latest issues are added in both full-text HTML and PDF formats. Advanced search and saved search functionality, table of contents e-alerts are all now available.

You now seem to define and market Scientific American, a general interest magazine, more like a peer-reviewed scholarly journal (such as Nature). Do you agree? Do you think Scientific American is sui generis—a consumer magazine with crossover potential—or are there others?

Obviously, Scientific American is a magazine, not a peer-reviewed journal. That said, we believe it has real interest and value for scientists and our institutional customers—so as you define it, a consumer magazine with crossover potential. Scientific American has always been relevant and valued by scientists when seeking to understand advances outside their field of expertise. As Scientific American develops, we intend to make it essential reading for scientists as well as consumers.

Scientific American assesses and selects most important science from a general interest perspective. Beyond practicing researchers, we see Scientific American as being of interest to a wide audience. Firstly, to those individuals who love science, and read about it for enjoyment and interest. Secondly, there is a whole group of people that need to keep up-to-date with science for work, including the business community, policy makers, and educators. Not to mention students, who will be interested in science and technology for their studies, or in science’s sociological or economic impact on society.

Scientific American has always been a ‘thought leader’ magazine from a science and technology perspective. Publications like The Economist, which offers a business perspective, The Atlantic, which offers a political perspective, and other ‘thought leadership’ magazines undoubtedly have crossover potential into an academic setting.

How has your revenue stream (advertising, personal subscriptions, institutional print and site licenses) been changing and where do you see that going in the next three to five years?

There have been big changes in publishing for quite a while. I think most publishers have seen a drift away from large advertising revenues built on large circulations. It’s clear that we expect subscriptions to be a bigger contributor to overall revenues in future. We are seeing an increased dependence on content fees including, but not limited to, print and digital subscriptions. Advertising remains very significant, and we expect to be able to take advantage of synergies within NPG to provide new services. One good example of that is offering job vacancies on scientificamerican.com, powered by Naturejobs.

Looking back, it seems that Scientific American was slow to increase prices—and one of the reasons for the pushback was the dramatic price increase. In hindsight, would it have been wiser to raise prices more steadily?

The business decisions were taken in good faith at the time. Scientific American was not alone in the general interest magazine marketplace in trialing free online access or low-cost subscriptions, on the basis that advertising would largely sustain the publication. Neither is Scientific American alone in realizing that, at least in the current economic climate, this model will not work for most magazines and newspapers. The Financial Times has a paid-for model for its content online, The New York Times has announced it will introduce a paywall to its web site in 2011, and other publications are cutting their base rate or raising their cover price.

Of course we would have preferred not to burden customers with the full price increase in a single year, but in this instance it was unavoidable. Scientific American is one of the first consumer publications to explicitly address the cost of producing a magazine through realistic subscription pricing. In forging a new path, we’re inevitably going to cause consternation and come in for criticism.

Similarly, you said you’d work to improve library communications—what changes have been made or will be made?

Scientific American library communications are now managed with the rest of NPG’s offerings to institutional customers. NPG is fortunate to have strong relationships with the library community, and that should mean effective and early communication.

Can you describe, in general (beyond libraries) how the subscriber base for Scientific American has changed in recent years, in terms of print and online? How do you see this changing?

Obviously, we’ve seen a lot more online use, but print circulation has held up remarkably well.

How are you using the mobile platform and how much is that a priority? Do you see the iPad or its ilk playing a significant role for magazine content?

Certainly, we can see readers making use of mobile access to Scientific American. We have already released an iPhone app for nature.com. Our intention is to offer other NPG publications on mobile apps in future, as we learn more about this as a distribution channel. The iPad et al present exciting opportunities and challenges. We’re looking at EPUB files, and the nature.com iPhone app will work with iPad from launch.

Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that readers can access Scientific American content wherever they want to, in the format that suits them. Let me be clear—we are investing in Scientific American to increase its reach, impact, and educational value. Our goal for Scientific American is to ensure that the magazine will still be going strong in another 150 years; however people want to consume great scientific journalism then.

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