iPad Users Favor Digital Newspapers

According to a new survey released Thursday, many iPad users are likely to cancel print subscriptions now that they are receiving digital editions of their favorite newspapers. Moreover, the report compiled by the University of Missouri's Reynolds Journalism Institute noted that 10.7 percent of respondents indicated they had already canceled print subscriptions.

Still, those newspaper subscriptions were already in jeopardy, so it's not news that they are likely to go away, noted Forrester Research Vice President James McQuivey.

"If anything, the iPad is a ray of hope, because it suggests that people will at least pay for something, as opposed to the free news they get online currently," McQuivey said. "Newspaper companies will respond by asking people to bundle the paper and digital versions, but over time they understand most reading will shift to digital subscriptions."

Looking for Lower Prices

When asked in an open-ended question what factors would influence their news-application or newspaper-subscription decisions, iPad users most often said "a price lower than the price of a print subscription." The respondents are also looking for a very easy to use and reliable app, with access to at least all the content available in the printed edition, researchers added.

"While respondents mention video and interactive features, they are much less commonly expressed in the survey than the aforementioned issues," the report's authors wrote.

Among the 931 respondents who were subscribing to print newspapers when surveyed, there was a statistically significant and positive correlation between iPad news consumption and the likelihood of canceling print subscriptions, researchers noted. For example, 58.1 percent of those using the iPad at least an hour a day for news said they were very likely to cancel their print subscriptions within the next six months.

On the other hand, new subscription sales opportunities should arise among iPad users as traditional newspapers add digital editions to their publishing portfolios. More than 30 percent of the survey's respondents indicated they were not subscribing to printed newspapers at the time the survey was conducted.

A Satisfying Reading Experience

About 60 percent of the survey's respondents implied that they had previously used an e-reader. Despite the iPad's lack of an easy-to-read E Ink screen, respondents rated their reading experiences as somewhat better or about the same as reading experiences with printed newspapers or magazines.

The most popular newspapers among survey respondents were The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. However, older survey respondents were more likely to say the reading experience on the iPad was worse than traditional print media.

"For example, the more that respondents had read printed newspapers in the past 30 days, the worse they rated the iPad reading experience compared to reading a printed newspaper," the report's authors wrote.

More than 93 percent of the survey's respondents rated their overall satisfaction with the iPad as either very satisfied (70.2 percent) or somewhat satisfied (23.4 percent). The other good news for Apple: 76.1 percent indicated they are very likely to recommend the iPad to a friend or relative.

Among the 1,609 iPad users surveyed by the Reynolds Journalism Institute, the top iPad activity category was following breaking news and staying abreast of current events (84.4 percent). Other popular iPad activities included leisure reading of books, newspapers and magazines (81.5 percent), browsing the web (80.8 percent), and e-mail (75.8 percent).

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The iPad May Not Be The Great Saviour Of Newspapers

{"s" : "aapl,erts","k" : "a00,a50,b00,b60,c10,g00,h00,l10,p20,t10,v00","o" : "","j" : ""} Dan Sabbagh, On Monday November 29, 2010, 6:49 am EST

George Orwell once made a very important comparison between the rival merits of books and cigarettes, in an effort to prove that the cost of reading was not much greater than the cost of a few fags.

Not much has changed since, judging by the amount of gold coins the machine requires – although Orwell’s point was that reading was a pretty inexpensive business if you put your mind to it.

It was just, unfortunately, that people didn’t because reading was “a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub”.

Move forward in time to the era of the iPad and the Kindle, starting with the slim Amazonian device first. Kindles, of course, are designed for the reading of ebooks, and sometimes there is somebody on the train armed with one. But give people something else to do on their Kindle, and suddenly there is a whole lot more fun to be had – which is what Electronic Arts (NSDQ:ERTS - News), the games company behind Medal of Honor and other virtual shooting-type activity, found when it released Scrabble on the Kindle earlier this year.

Scrabble was the number one selling app/game/anything on the Kindle when it was launched in the US in September, outselling all the books that week, which EA has since followed with Solitaire (also a No 1) and a bunch of other games. Conceived as a serious device for serious people, it may turn out, as Orwell might have predicted, that Kindle owners rather enjoy playing games too. Who knows where this will end up, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Kindle ends up being rather more than a mere book reader.

Consider also the iPad. The coming weeks will see umpteen iPad newspaper and magazine launches, as serious brands chase what they believe to be a serious demographic of buyers. On the plus side, the early signs are that there is a meaningful audience to chase. Over at Screen Digest, one of the better research firms, they reckon that Apple (NSDQ:AAPL - News) will sell 1m iPads by the end of the year – and that iPad penetration will reach about 10-11% (6 to 6.5 million) of the British population by 2014, which is about as far as anybody can reasonably forecast.

This is a seductive looking number – as long, that is, as people spend their time using their iPads for reading. It’s well in excess, say, of the combined average daily sale of the upmarket press – just over 2m Monday to Saturday. But the problem is – for those who dare take their iPad out on the way to work – is that an iPad is not newspaper with moving words. Screen Digest, again, reckon that the average owner downloads about 60 apps a year, of which all but six are free. That certainly leaves room to buy an iPad newspaper, but will it leave time to read it when there is all that other stuff to play with?

The problem for anybody wanting to believe that the iPad is a newspaper or magazine replacement is that it is not. It’s a digital device, which means people will get easily distracted and start playing Scrabble, or listening to music or whatever else one can get up to on a crowded carriage.

It’s also still too easy to jump from one news source to another, because digital has fundamentally changed people’s relationship with printed news sources. Once, a newspaper was not just a source of information, but a statement of identity, where most buyers would not dream of picking up a competing title. Now, in a era where identities are altogether more protean, and when any app can disappear from view at a single touch, it is not obvious that people will simply sit down and spend 20 minutes engaged in silent contemplation over a single title. It’s not how the modern mind works.

George Orwell might be disappointed with that, but he long ago recognised the problem. Those in the media business pinning too much hope on the iPad, though, might be in for a bit of a surprise.

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