• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 17, 2012

More tablet owners are reading newspapers and magazines on their devices, according to the latest data from comScore’s TabLens research service, which is based on a three-month rolling sample of 6,000 tablet owners; these findings, along with new data from GfK MRI, hold out the promise of growing advertising and circulation revenues from this burgeoning new channel.
 
Overall, 11.5% of tablet owners -- a definition that includes iPad, Android tablets, Kindle Fire, and Nook -- said they read newspapers on their tablets “almost every day” or “at least once a week.” Some 14.6% said they read newspapers on their tablets one to three times a month, and 37.1% said they read newspapers on their tablets once a month.

Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile, noted that 7% of all newspaper page views now come from tablets. Turning to magazines, 9.7% of all tablet owners said they read magazines on their tablets almost every day, 13.3% at least once a week, 16.7% one to three times a month, and 39.6% once a month.
 
Tablet owners who read newspaper and magazine content tend to skew male, with newspaper audiences 17% more likely to be male than the average tablet owner, while magazine audiences were 11% more likely to be male.

More than half of tablet readers had a household income of $75,000 or more. Tablet readers also skewed younger, with adults ages 25-34 accounting for the largest share of newspaper and magazine readers: 27.4% and 28.2%, respectively.
 
GfK MRI Starch Digital found high engagement rates for digital advertising delivered to tablets or e-readers along with magazine content. The survey of 30,000 digital ads across 1,000 magazine issues from April-July of this year found 55% of digital magazine readers noted or read a digital ad on their tablet or e-reader.

Within this group, 52% (28.6% of the total) interacted with the ad as result, with 38% (20.9% of the total) touching or clicking the ad to expand it. Meanwhile, 34% viewed multiple pages of a multi-page ad, and the same proportion accessed a Web site through the ad; 31% watched a video or commercial; 30% viewed a gallery, and the same proportion (30%) downloaded an app.