NEW YORK — Although tablet owners spend more time consuming news than poking around on Facebook, they’re reluctant to pay for news content.
That’s according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. It found that 11 percent of American adults own a tablet of some kind and they spend on average 90 minutes a day using the device.
Consuming news is one of the most popular activities, up there with e-mail and more popular than social networking. Only general Web-browsing proved more popular on tablets than news and e-mail.
Even so, just 14 percent of those who read news on tablets said they have paid for news on their devices. Another 23 percent pay for a print subscription that includes tablet content.
“That is a much higher number than previous research has found more broadly of people paying for digital content,” the report says. Nonetheless, a “large majority” of people who have not paid for news are “reluctant to do so, even if that was the only way to get news from their favorite sources,” the report adds.
This is bad news for media companies hoping to boost revenue by charging for content on Apple’s iPad and other tablets. Of the people who have not paid directly to access news on their tablet, 21 percent said they would spend $5 a month if that was the only way to access their favorite news outlet. The Associated Press
