A report released earlier this week by the United Kingdom’s Professional Publishers Association (PPA) reveals that tablet users are engaging with digital magazines. No surprise, right?

What is interesting about this report, though, is that the PPA also notes that there appears to be a “positive correlation between print and tablet readership.” In fact, according to the report, 96 percent of tablet owners have read a PRINTED magazine in the last year, compared to the 80 percent national average.

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News of the death of newspapers never stops. A LinkedIn analytics post showed that newspapers are the fastest shrinking industry in terms of job numbers. The Newspaper Association of America released statistics that showed ad sales were down 7.3 percent in 2011. On his blog, Alan D. Mutter added some more dismal facts—the last time ad sales were this low was 1984, and the combined ad sales of all U.S. newspapers equal only two-thirds of that of Google. Though digital advertising increased 6.8 percent, it still failed to make up the 9.2 percent loss of print.

And so, Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review asked a pertinent question, “Is any university in America still admitting students as print journalism majors?” Read more

Cosmopolitan, the Hearst-owned “Fun Fearless Female” lady mag, told Ad Age today that they reached a significant milestone: to date, the publication has scored 100,000 paid digital subscriptions, a number that’s quite encouraging to other struggling print magazines. So how’d they do it? Check out some of the learnings from Cosmo’s strategy below.

• Charging more for digital subscriptions than for print: Cosmo offers print-only subscriptions for $15/year, while its digital subscriptions on Zinio and iPad are $19.99/year.
• Offering digital subscriptions on a host of different devices: Cosmo has been sure to not put all its eggs in one basket. According to Ad Age, they’ve been on Zinio since 2005, but also offer their title in other marketplaces, such as iTunes, Kindle and Nook.
• No free digital subscription with print subscription: Many magazines offer a free digital subscription if you buy a print subscription. Cosmo has steered away from this strategy, charging customers separately for both.
• Capitalizing on newsstand success: Cosmo has extremely successful newsstand circulation, reportedly selling 1.5 million copies from newsstands in the last half of 2011 alone. This exposure helps to more easily market their digital strategy.

What do you think of Cosmo‘s digital strategy?

While newspapers are the subject of much of the negative speculations about the future of jounalism, their print cousin the magazine hasn’t exactly marched into the 21st Century unscathed and as popular as ever. It’s expected, therefore, to learn about new initiatives to spread magazine content to new continents or new platforms — anything to reach new readers or reach existing readers in new ways. I get how the iPad or Newsstand. But I didn’t see this one coming.

Condé Nast and HP announced they’re going to partner on a project that will let readers skip the mailing lag and print their own magazines on demand — from their home printers:

The Condé Nast pilot program will feature print-to-home services for subscribers to schedule the delivery of content from their favorite brands – such as Allure, Details, Epicurious, Glamour, Golf Digest, Self, and Wired – directly to their personal printers. … With scheduled delivery to HP web-connected printers using HP print tools, publishers can reach readers more frequently than with print magazines and more tangibly than via email.

While the magazine publisher will deliver the content, the printer maker (speaking of technologies that haven’t gracefully entered the 21st Century) will also offer a subscription to its HP Instant Ink — which will be shipped to you for just $5.99 to $10.99 per month, depending on the product. Apparently, at least in the beginning, the content will be free, but printer ink is notoriously expensive, and even if your monthly ink subscription comes in around the price of one to two lattes, that’s still more than full newsstand price for many of these titles. And you won’t get the fun of glossy pages and perfect binding.

As both a magazine writer and subscriber (to about a half dozen titles, including some CN titles), and the owner of two unused printers (including an HP), I have to admit some skepticism for the initiative. I suppose the good news is the publisher is willing to try different tacks to reach its audience, even if those tacks seem wildly off course.

Your turn: What do you think? Would you print a magazine from home? Is this a savvy or silly idea?