Zinio expands reach in digital media market with 1,000 new mag titles available to library patrons

Zinio, the digital magazine newsstand, has announced an aggressive move to expand by offering an additional 1,000 magazine titles to library patrons, more than doubling the number of titles available to users to 1,800 -- including international titles with non-English language content. 

The digital Zinio for Libraries service has experienced a 300% growth in registered users in the past year, according to Beth Murphy, the executive vice-president of product and chief marketing officer for Zinio. Zinio specializes in replica editions of popular magazines, readable on browsers or mobile devices using one of its apps.

While Zinio is offered in Canadian libraries, many of the best known and largest titles from Rogers Media were withdrawn from the service when Rogers launched Next Issue Canada in collaboration with the five biggest U.S. magazine publishers. Also, Magazines Canada allowed a partnership with Zinio to lapse and launched its own digital newsstand, featuring member magazines.

"Library patrons are demonstrating rapid adoption of digital magazines by accessing magazine content through Zinio for Libraries, with new checkouts of online magazines averaging over 1,000,000 per month," said Rich Freese, Recorded Books President and CEO. RBdigital, partners with Zinio. "The digital media market for libraries is showing exponential growth. Every minute a new library patron is added, 13 magazines are checked out on Zinio for Libraries. We expect that the addition of international digital magazines with new language content will appeal to an even broader selection of patrons with multinational interests and diverse cultural backgrounds."

Rogers Media withdraws magazine titles from library service offering free downloads

For many library card holders in Canada, it may have seemed too good to be true -- that they could download free digital copies of leading magazines such as Maclean's and Chatelaine, using a service powered by replica magazine service Zinio. As it has turned out, after a brief period of access,  it was. 

Rogers Media has withdrawn most of its magazines from the service, attributing the decision to advice from the industry trade association Magazines Canada. Mark Jamison, the president of Magazines Canada said it was because of "content delivery expectations and restrictions". According to Rogers, quoted by the Globe and Mail, the decision wasn't its own, but Magazines Canada's, of which it is a prominent member and major funder. 

It can't be a complete coincidence that Rogers Media's recently announced partnership with the U.S. group Next Issue Media  to form Next Issue Canada is based on the intention to sell digital magazines packages, its own and as many as 100 American titles. Essentially at least part of this story is the clash between "free" distribution and "paid". 

The Zinio subscriptions which libraries paid in order to be able to offer free magazines to cardholders was based on a combination of a flat license and user fees. My local library has been offering 50 titles to anyone with a valid library card, until now. Some of the more popular ones included Canadian Living, National Geographic (with interactive content), O, the Oprah Magazine, Women’s and Men’s Health, Style at Home, Maclean's, Chatelaine,  the Economist, Hello! Canada, House & Home, Maxim, Zoomer and Sportsnet. As can be seen, Rogers's decision will leave a fairly large hole.

A note on the Zinio site says: 

PLEASE NOTE: Effective October 2013 Rogers Publishing Group has removed the following publications from all library Zinio collections: Canadian Business, Chatelaine, Maclean's, Today's Parent and L'actualite. We are working on replacement titles.

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