Readers spend similar times with print, digital and both, says Condé Nast Britain study

A British study of readers and their print and digital tablets has found that readers use them much the same way and with similar "dwell times" (a term used in the British magazine industry for reading time.)

Carried out by Condé Nast Britain, the publisher of Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair, GQ and Wired the research , which is reported by Campaign magazine, is said to be the first such "like-for-like" study of print and digital tablet reader relationships.  

The reading behaviour study questioned 6,965 subscribers who read the titles in print or digital, including iPad, Android and across platforms (both print and digital) and it was verified by YouGov. It found that in addition to time spent, print and digital magazines were read in a very similar way – eg, front to back – irrespective of format.

Nicholas Coleridge, president of Condé Nast International and managing director of Condé Nast Britain, told Campaign: "This research debunks for all time the assumption that people read print and digital magazines in different ways, and for different periods of time."

(The research results were released just ahead of the release of six-monthly Audit Bureau of Circulations figures which, like in North America, are expected to report significant falls in newsstand sales.)

Among the dwell times reported by Condé, Vogue showed 122 minutes for print, 116 for digital and 162 minutes for print and digital. Vanity Fair showed 169 minutes for print, 154 for digital and print plus digital was 188 minutes.