Unveiled at the World Editors Forum in Hamburg, the survey, which was carried out by the Innovation International Media Consulting Group, provides editors and journalists with inspirational case studies and practical advice on how to move forward and innovate.
Reflecting the forum's tagline, 'The Tablet Year', the group also highlighted the value in effective exploitation of tablet platforms with the unveiling of their own prototype tablet platform concept 'NewSSlate', which could enable users to interact with news of any format or size from one device, on the go.
But Juan Senor, partner at the Innovation Media Consulting Group, told the conference that most newspapers are so far failing to meet expectations on the iPad.
"You need to reinvent the titles, it won't work as well if you just re-purpose the content (...) You cannot pour old wine into new bottles (...) We must reinvent the way we tell stories, it's the journalism not the platform. All we do at the moment, most of us, is put in a picture, the text, a caption and maybe a slideshow, or even a visualisation. But we are still text focused. What we need are new digital narratives - news you can read, watch and touch. We need to be more sensorial with devices. Experience is much more important than the brand.
"At the moment, something is missing in the way we are putting these things out. Our brands are not good enough. People have different expectations from these devices. We must treat it as a different media".
In this year's report, consultant Pedro Monteiro outlines 12 concepts for designing content for the iPad, such as finding a balance between "the slow pleasure of reading and the richness of experience digital content can provide".
"Design for the tablet using some of the print canons your paper readers know (...) but take advantage of the digital opportunities as well, like hyperlinked words and tags, and the use of pop-up menus for more information", he suggests.
Recommendations also include a formula for allocating content, '70/10/20'. This suggests that 70 per cent of an application's content should be from the printed edition, ten per cent should be sections from traditional media which can been digitally transformed, such as crosswords or travel news, and the final 20 per cent represents multimedia articles which have been produced from scratch specifically for the device.
"This is the content that will stand out as the perfect way of consuming news on a tablet," Monteiro adds.
The overall message to publishers looking to work with tablets was to make audiences pay for content.
"iPad means iPay," Senor told the conference. "Why give it for free? Produce more for those who pay and less for those who do not pay. Enough. Free is very expensive."
Carlo Campos, director of ICG added that charging is not about finding the content of value and making people pay, it is about seeking out scarcity and demand.
"To charge or not to charge - that is not the right question. The question is what can we charge for, what will people pay for online. People only pay for things that are scarce. You need to look at what is potentially scarce, such as message richness, context, audience people, location, intention and fulfilment.
"You cannot charge for what is valuable, for what is useful, for what is relevant," he told Journalism.co.uk. "If you have something that is valuable to you, you will consume it but you won't necessarily pay for it. You have to find what is it that is scarce in your online content, then you can charge for it".
The report outlines a number of case studies demonstrating innovation at news outlets across the world, from new revenue streams such as the New York Times' Wine Club and Chile's El Mercurio's Readers' Club, to the transformation of the Diario de Sao Paulo.
The newspaper, which was near bankruptcy, has managed to record a 50 per cent increase in sales since its regeneration of content in July, which included the introduction of a 'two speed reading' layout, offering micro news pieces within longer articles to give the reader the choice.
Speaking at the conference, the newspaper's general director Flavio Pestana said the industry must be open to big changes in order to survive.
"I think the newspaper industry is having a hard time, circulations and readership are decreasing. The fact is we are losing advertising share and we are losing revenues so we have to be more radical in change. Cosmetic changes will not be enough.
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