News Corp. shuts down The Daily

Life

News Corp is to close its digital iPad-based newspaper, The Daily, after less than two years on sale.

Rupert Murdcoh’s iPad newspaper has failed to win enough subscribers to be a viable business. According to The Guardian, the digital offering was losing $30 million a year, and had admassed around 100,000 subscribers. This information was revealed in an open e-mail from editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo.

"From its launch, The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation," said Murdoch. "Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term."

The Daily was available for subscription at 99c per week, or $39.99 per year. It is reported that the title required five times as many customers (approximately 500,000 subscriptions) to break even. in July it was reported that the title was shedding a third of its staff.

"We will take the very best of what we have learned at The Daily and apply it to all our properties," said Murdoch. "I know The New York Post will continue to grow and become stronger on the web, on mobile, and not least, the paper itself. I want to thank all of the journalists, digital and business professionals for the hard work they put into The Daily."

The news is also a blow to Apple, who were on hand at the launch of the Daily. "It’s incredible to believe something of this production value can be done every single day," said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet services.

IDG News Service