Maghound sub service slow off the mark

While some segments of the industry hailed Time Inc.'s Maghound subscription service, its results so far have been something of a disappointment.

The service, whereby subscribers pay a monthly fee to get a set number of titles per month and can cancel, swap or switch at any time, has been negligible in terms of sales. According to a story in MediaWeek, sales are 1% or less.

Nevertheless, Maghound president Dave Ventresca, says that performance has been in line with expectations (though he would not reveal volume).

Ventresca said that Maghound would ramp up its marketing in the months ahead, with a word-of-mouth campaign, expanded direct mail and e-mail promotions, greater use of banner ads, and a branding campaign starting in Time Inc.-owned magazines, which include Time and People.

Ventresca wouldn’t identify what thresholds Maghound needed to achieve to be successful, but said it probably would have to attract several hundred thousand members. “This was built to be a scalable circulation source for the whole industry....”

Execs gave Time Inc. credit for trying something new to boost sagging sales, though. Steven Kotok, president of The Week, said that while Maghound represented less than 0.1 percent of his 515,936 circ, he “applauded them for innovating.” Henry Donohue, CEO of Discover magazine, said that Maghound-generated sales of his 691,350-circ title are “not significant” but that “to really make it meaningful, they would have to invest a lot more marketing resources behind it, and this is a tough time to do it.”

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• Time Inc. unveils Maghound, a mix-and-match "consumer-centric" subscription service