Some newspapers seem to be taking a cue from the cell phone and tablet industry, offering discounted tablets with a newspaper subscription where cell companies have been offering them with cellular service contracts. The Philadelphia Media Network, publisher of several Philly-area papers, has launched a deal in which it will offer Archos Arnova 10.1” Android Tablets at $99 for $9.99/mo 2-year subscribers, or $129 for 1-year $12.99/mo subscribers. (Amazon lists the non-G2-version of the tablet at $182.53 with a $199.99 MSRP. Presumably the G2 will be slightly more expensive.)
"This partnership recognizes that consumers are increasingly utilizing tablets and other highly portable devices for their news, sports, and entertainment needs," Philadelphia Media Network CEO Gregory Osberg said in a statement. "We intend to utilize a variety of platforms and methods to reach our customers, ranging from Philly.com to traditional hard copy subscriptions, as well as our new digital subscriptions."
Needless to say, this suffers from the same drawback as cell phone contracts: in the name of saving $100, you’re spending $240 on a newspaper subscription. The math doesn’t quite seem to work out there, unless you’d have subscribed to the newspaper anyway.
But Philly’s papers will not be the only ones to offer such a tablet. Last month CNet reported that the Chicago Tribute was considering a similar offer. Perhaps we’ll see this spread to more papers as time goes on.
