Newspaper industry

Tablet users not paying more for news than others

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Alan Gardner October 25, 2011 1 minute 1 comment

As the rise of the iPhone Apps and other smart phones came on the market, there was a general feeling that if people weren’t willing pay for stuff they can get for free online, maybe they’d be willing to pay for it if it came packaged as an app. That seems to be true according to a study published by Poynter regarding how tablet users get news, but those that who get their news through apps tend to be a small paying minority. The larger majority tend to use their tablets much like desktop moochers.

From Poynter:

But among the 85 percent of tablet news readers who have not yet paid directly for content, there is little appetite to convert. Only 21 percent said they would be willing to pay $5 a month if their favorite tablet news source required it. Only 10 percent would pay $10 a month.

Tablet users are slightly more willing than general Internet users to pay for content. Earlier PEJ studies found only 5 percent of online news consumers had paid for local news, and just 7 percent would be willing to pay for online news of any kind.