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iPad users spending $70K a day on newspaper and magazine content

Is it time to credit Apple's iPad (along with the dedicated Newsstand folder) for saving the traditional news industry? Maybe not just yet, but it's looking promising.

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Joe Aimonetti MacFixIt Editor
Joe is a seasoned Mac veteran with years of experience on the platform. He reports on Macs, iPods, iPhones and anything else Apple sells. He even has worked in Apple retail stores. He's also a creative professional who knows how to use a Mac to get the job done.
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A new report, released by the analytics firm Distimo (via Business Insider), finds that iPad users are spending upwards of $70,000 each day on magazines and newspapers for their iPads.

The report looked at the top-100 Newsstand apps in terms of gross sales, finding that iPad users seem willing to pay for newsy content. At the top of the list, as expected, are apps from The New York Times, The Daily, and the New Yorker. Also interesting to note, news apps account for 7 percent of the top-200 grossing apps.

The revenue from those apps comes largely at the hand of in-app purchasing. By providing the app for free and charging a subscription fee, newspapers and magazines seem to have found a revenue stream that customers are willing to support.

Though Apple's Newsstand has only been operational for about 6 months, the results so far look promising for an industry that has been in a free fall for years. And, while Steve Jobs may have offered a lifeline to traditional news outlets in the form of the iPad, it remains to be seen whether these companies will be able to transition away from the enormous overheads of print and into the ever-growing popularity of online consumption.

The $70,000 per day figure looks good on a headline, but when broken down by the total number of iPad users, we are talking about less than a penny per day, per user. So, there's a long way to go before the newspaper industry can rest easy, but the good news is, there's plenty of room to grow.

Do you subscribe to any of the Newsstand apps? What's your favorite? Let me know in the comments!