With the publishing industry in the midst of change, magazine proprietors are faced with a dilemma. Do you keep ploughing a furrow in print; do you throw everything into going digital; or do you go somewhere in between?

The answer, of course, is usually the latter. But there’s also plenty of evidence out there to suggest that publishing brands simply have to utilise the tablet effectively – and not just viewing the magazine’s site through a web browser.

For some magazines, of course, it’s too late. Only as recently as April, the UK-based women’s magazine More! announced it was to “suspend publication” after 25 years of service. According to the head of owner Bauer Media explaining the cull, the title had become “unviable”, with its readership figures dropping to below 100,000 between July and December 2012.

Hence according to two separate industry reports – one from magazine purchasing app lekiosk, another from magazine publishing strategists Mequoda Group – the tablet is understandably gaining critical traction as a publishing solution.

The trend is so well augmented that Mequoda roared: “It took 224 years for an entrepreneur to harness the printing press for generating what we now know as magazines, and create an entire new industry.

“Today, in the three years since the introduction of the iPad, it’s become clear that the tablet has rescued the magazine industry from the brink of destruction.”

That’s a fairly hefty statement – so what is there to back it up?

1) Brands can pick up a subscriber base outside its traditional audience: The lekiosk report shows that universal access is helping brands find readers in places they never thought of hitting.

lekiosk co-founder Nathanial Philippe commented: “We’re seeing the start of a trend which could see the digitisation of magazine content drive the globalisation of a wide range of magazines.”

One curious add-on is that, according to the British-based research, men are twice as likely as women to peruse a digital magazine produced abroad.

2) More temptation for users to buy add-ons: If your user base has migrated over to digital, and is a fan of the brand as well as the content, there’s a big opportunity for companies to capitalise. The lekiosk study revealed that over one in 10 respondents wanted to improve digital magazines by making adverts more interactive – in other words, buying whilst reading.

According to the Mequoda report, 39% of tablet users polled have spent more than $100 in the last 12 months through their tablets. 4.5% of respondents said they had spent over $500. With online retailers, led by Amazon, increasingly turning to one-click buying, the temptation for users to part with their cash is greater than ever.

3) More editorial opportunity through rich content: The Mequoda study cites the examples of Forbes and The Atlantic, two players who bet big and right with a tablet mag. “These folks are taking advantage of something that tablet users say they crave: features that they can’t get in a print version, such as related videos and photo galleries,” the report notes.  

The lekiosk report cited nearly one in five respondents who wanted to improve tablet magazines by featuring more video content.

4) Subscribers will get picked up more quickly: Mequoda examined one particular publisher, luxury travel magazine Conde Nast, who reported that their tablet subscriber base is renewing subscriptions at a higher rate than print-only subscribers – and at a higher price too.

There are important facets to consider, yet it must be worth stressing that the revolution is not going to be instantaneous. Mequoda claimed that by 2020 consumers would prefer tablet to print – which may worry some readers, but others may see it as a reasonable amount of time to change strategy.

And is there a place for print? Industry experts in the newspaper industry told Apps World attendees last year there was a place for both – perhaps understandable given their position, but according tp Mark Challinor, director of mobile and interactive at the Telegraph Group: “We have different platforms for different things.

“They all serve differently, and complement each other rather than compete with each other.”

What do you think? Do you prefer reading magazines on tablets or in hard copy, and why?