Categories: OLD Media Moves

Harvard Biz Review plans to add subscribers by upping price

Joseph Lichterman of the Nieman Journalism Lab writes about how Harvard Business Review wants to add subscribers while increasing its price.

Lichterman writes, “HBR thinks readers will be willing to pay more for a subscription because the magazine is adding new products it hopes will offer readers additional value for the added cost.

“Last month, HBR launched its Visual Library, a collection of the magazine’s charts, graphs, and slide decks accessible only to subscribers. It’s also in the early stages of testing out a concierge service that will allow users to request personalized collections of stories from the HBR archive.

“‘What we found is that, as we’ve rolled these things out, we’ve been able to move the price up,’ Macht said.

“The new products are part of a larger overhaul from HBR. Last fall, it introduced a redesigned website, and it’s currently in the midst of a print redesign — its first since 2010. And by the middle of 2016, HBR plans to roll out what editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius called ‘a pretty dramatic strategic rethink.’ It’ll likely include more new products and a potential reduction in how often HBR comes out in print. HBR now prints 10 issues per year.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.