Survey finds iPad negatively affecting print media

Cat owners love cats: not unexpectedly there's no more love for dogs.

Who says they were using printed media before buying an iPad? This survey doesn't show that iPads are "cannibalizing" newspaper subscriptions.

I hate to be a pedantic git... but as you quote, "the Times of London", which has been around since 1785 [when it was originally called the The Daily Universal Register, soon changed to The Times].

It has never been called The Times of London. Ever. It is a peculiarly American penchant to want to attach many things with the suffix, "........... of London". So if you claim to be journalists, correcting this obvious error would gain you bonus points in my book.

Amazing... I just did a survey of 1600 newspaper readers who don't own iPads and 100% said they preferred the printed version over the digital version?

On a serious note... My local newspapers digital format sucks the hind teet. It's missing sections, intentionally they say. They have the printed version, the online version and the eReader subscription version.

My choice? I only read online news (via browser on my computer, iPad and iPhone) and watch local news. Online news is free for the most part and so is local OTA news.

Overall, this is an incredibly confusing and really just bad article.

It starts out with an odd assumption: are there newspaper people who actually thought that the iPad would increase the amount of people subscribing to their print editions of the newspaper? Why on earth would they think that?

I can easily see newspaper people believing that the iPad would increase the net number of people who read their newspaper every day. I could even see that happening. That would be an interesting post.

The author blurs the distinction between paper subscriptions, and the companies behind the papers themselves (what I would call "print media").

This has spurred comments such as this: "Interesting. I'm just the opposite. I have found myself considering subscribing to a newspaper on my iPad." Is that really what the article was talking about? Is that a sign that maybe this needs a serious revision, or at least some re-reading?

For what it's worth I'm seriously considering getting my wife a tablet in the hope that she'll drop subscriptions to our local newspapers. The amount of paper collecting and recycling is both rediculous and unnecessary.

In other news... it was found that the automobile industry had an impact on blacksmiths...

Get with the program. Shoeing horses is a niche market. If you want to be in business... move on to selling tires.

Print is rapidly going away. Digital music replaced CD's, which replaced tapes, which replaced LP's. Why are people even investigating the obvious?

Why would this be a negative effect? It seems like it would be a positive one since it's affecting the usage of trees.

If the newspapers were smart they'd start looking at their paper usage and recycle everything they could instead of buying new. They then could see where they are with digital vs print.

BTW, I don't have an iPad and yet I never buy a printed copy of a newspaper. They're too much trouble to deal with once you're finished. I stopped buying when I got the Internet about 15 years ago.

Interesting. I'm just the opposite. I have found myself considering subscribing to a newspaper on my iPad, when I have never ever considered it with a newsprint paper. I found printed papers unwieldy, messy, and hard to search.

Perhaps there's a new market of people who would subscribe to an iPad edition, but not to paper?

"Bad news for members of the newspaper industry that expect to use digital media to save their print editions."

OMG what a horrible written story. Print media has been on the dramatic decline for the better part of a decade, but only now the iPad is affecting it?!?! And correct me, but can't iPads view the digital media from a print edition? Simply because something is declining doesn't mean the iPad is doing it. I guess by your "logic" the iPad is destroying the DVD?!? Oh, or what about the CD? I mean who cares that the CD was in decline years ago with things like iTunes and Amazon, but I am sure that the iPad is the root cause.

Not unexpectedly, 84.4% of iPad owners primarily use their iPad to follow breaking news and current events.

As an iPad owner, I find this to be decidedly unexpected ... because the word 'primarily' was used. As nice as the iPad is, it's not my primary anything, and while I realize that my needs aren't the same as everyone's, 84% seems very high.