According to the Wall Street Journal, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is considering merging print and digital titles of its magazines.

His idea is to let print subscribers bundle their subscriptions with their digital reader versions. From the WSJ: “…he wants to make tablet-computer subscriptions for the company’s magazines available to people who already subscribe to the dead-tree versions of the company’s titles, which include Time, People, Sports Illustrated and Real Simple.”

This is a very smart way to get people to try their favorite magazines on a digital reader, without having the give up the print versions that they might be very happy with.