SoylentNews

Appalbarry [soylentnews.org] writes:

An article on the Nieman Foundation's website [soylentnews.org] looks at the success that Montreal's La Presse [lapresse.ca] has had in moving a daily newspaper from paper to an ambitious tablet focused publishing model. As far as I know they represent one of very few successful newspaper transitions from dead tree publishing, and several other papers are planning to adopt their platform.

• La Presse has found that the product works best on tablets six inches and larger, though they're working on a "phablet" version.
• Content is free at La Presse - no paywall - and they're finding the readership is more than enough to make a buck.
• The tablet format is delivering a much higher CPM (cost per thousand readers) than print, desktop, and phone versions.
• La Presse made a big increase in staff for the launch of the new platform.
• Perhaps not surprisingly, the tablet edition does skew towards younger readers in their twenties and thirties, but it is also attracting people who weren't previously reading the paper.
• Although it's expected that daily print publication is nearing an end, the big, advertising stuffed weekend paper is still likely to survive.

And, for those keeping score, "heavy users of digital newspaper news skew heavily to Apple products, and, here, La Presse+ is no different. More than 80 percent of the product’s “opens” and of the time spent using it, come from the iPad."

Original Submission