18 January 2021
From Michael Hansen's perspective, the textbook industry is having a Spotify moment.
The chief executive of Cengage, a leading publisher, brought up the music streaming service on an investor call last month, in reference to a question about the future of physical textbooks.
Hansen knows just how disruptive streaming was to the music industry: He once worked for one of the biggest companies in the business, Bertelsmann. Spotify and other streaming services became popular once consumers realized they were getting a good value for their money, Hansen said. Boston-based Cengage now has its own digital subscription service, but for textbooks; subscriber numbers were up 19 percent, year-over-year, in the most recent quarter.
