Wow...as if the Internet wasn't the first nail in the coffin of the newspaper industry (print edition), but tablets like the iPad give us even less reason to flip through big floppy print pages. It's been tough going for awhile...what kind of business model can be successful when you charge for printed content but give away the same content online for free?
- Using the iPad to follow breaking news reports and current events is the most popular use for the device, with 84.4% of respondents saying this is one of their main uses.
- More than three quarters (78.6%) of the users spent at least 30 minutes during a typical day consuming news on their iPad.
- Nearly half (48.9%) of the respondents said they spent an hour or more during a typical day consuming news on their iPad.
- Among the 931 respondents who indicated that they currently subscribe to print newspapers, there is a statistically significant, moderately strong, positive correlation between iPad news consumption and the likelihood of canceling their print subscriptions. (emphasis ours)
- For example, more than half (58.1%) of the respondents who subscribe to printed newspapers and use their iPad at least an hour a day for news said they are very likely to cancel their print subscriptions within the next six months.
- More than three out of 10 (30.6%) respondents indicated that they do not subscribe to printed newspapers, with another one out of 10 (10.7%) saying that they had already canceled their subscriptions to printed newspapers and switched to reading digital newspapers on their iPad.
The demand for content is out there in high numbers, but the willingness to pay for something so readily available for free puts newspapers in a precarious position.
Will we have to stop calling them "online newspaper"? If most people read their news online or on tablets, they may need to rename their industry.
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