Financial Times may quit iPad without reader details

The Financial Times' publisher Pearson late Monday warned it might leave the iPad and iPhone if it couldn't get reader information. CEO Marjorie Scardino was adamant on an investors' call that Pearson was "still talking" to Apple but was concerned that its iTunes subscription rules wouldn't let her newspaper get demographic information to target ads. If it couldn't get what it wanted, it might jump ship to Android tablets and other platforms where that information was readily available.

"The important thing to remember is there are many, many tablets coming out and multiple devices," Scardino said. "If Apple are not happy to give us customer data then maybe we will get it somewhere else."

Apple has so far allowed a handful of information to go through, such as names and area codes, but is making it a strictly opt-in process that users can decline while still signing up. Publishers have vocally opposed the strategy since it creates a much less complete picture of readers, limited only to eager subscribers who wouldn't necessarily represent the majority of the reader base. Although not mentioned by Pearson's chief during the call, the 30 percent cut has also been contentious for publishers that didn't have the leeway in their business models to cede that much revenue.

The FTC is believed to be investigating Apple's policies for possible anti-competitiveness, mostly over terms that force companies to offer their best deal through iTunes and to prevent them from using any of their existing subscription systems or even acknowledging that they exist in the app.

The FT and other publications, if they refuse to accept Apple terms, are very likely to switch or stick to Android through Google's One Pass system or a method of their own. The approach hands publishers more customer information and also takes a much smaller cut of in-app purchases. They may also get a smaller but equally receptive base through the HP TouchPad. 

Apple’s Subs Rules Could Suck $1 Million From Financial Times

The Financial Times is on-record as saying its iPad app generated a tenth of its (85,892) new cross-platform digital subscriptions last year.

Assuming each subscription was the cheapest, £233.48 ($376.63)pa tier, that would have made for £2 ($3.23) million in new iPad revenue. Praise, iPad!

But here’s where things get sticky for the FT—all of those 8,589 new iPad subscribers signed up using the publisher’sown in-app payment mechanism, which Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) will now apparently ban.

Were The Financial Times using iTunes Store payments last year, as it seems it must from June this year, it would have given Apple 30 percent of all this; that’s £601,621 ($970495.48).

That amount could have been higher if subscribers took out the higher-tier option, and will likely be higher still as more people buy iPads in future.

The publisher has not yet confirmed our estimates, which we did on its behalf, telling us: “It’s simply not yet clear how this will impact our model, but we’ll obviously be discussing this with Apple over the coming days.”

Others we have spoken with also seem shellshocked and uncertain of the effect, even though they knew it was coming some time ago and, in some cases, had already been in contact with Apple.

The FT is by no means alone today in taking subscriptions using its own mechanisms. Although they see the benefit in growing their business through iPad and iPhone, many publishers also believe Apple has never given them sufficient information about customers.

Update: The FInancial Times tells us: “Although there is nothing wrong in the method of the calculation, the headline figure is too high. A good proportion of the new subscriptions referenced in the calculation were from B2B corporate licences and the 10 percent of subscriptions driven by the iPad since its launch only applies to our new B2C FT.com acquisitions.”

Direct-to-consumer subs, as opposed to those taken out on a corporate site license, are still likely the majority of those bought.