Hearst Magazines, the publisher of titles such as Cosmopolitan and Esquire, is happy with electronic distribution on tablet devices such as the iPad. According to a Reuters article yesterday, Hearst President David Carey says the company has about 400,000 electronic subscribers so far and expects to have over 1 million subscribers at some point in 2012.
Tablet providers such as Apple take about 35 percent of subscription revenue, giving Hearst about 65 percent of the revenue of each subscription sold. That's better than print newsstand sales, where publishers only keep about 55 percent of revenue. Magazine publishers weren't happy with Apple's terms for subscriptions sold through the App Store, primarily because they gave up co
