News Corp closes The Daily after 21 months
The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s iPad newspaper, is to shut later this month after the News Corporation boss admitted it was failing to attract enough subscribers.
The Daily had only secured around 100,000 subscribers during its 21 months in existence – losing around $30 million a year.
Murdoch said that The Daily’s content would now live on in other channels, while founding editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo will take the role of publisher at the New York Post, returning to a title where he was previously executive editor.
“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.”
In other changes to the way traditional print media has tried to capture the growing tablet market, it is reported in Ad Age that The Economist last month stopped bundling app access with all new print subscriptions, charging more to newcomers who want both and introducing a print option that comes without apps.
When asked why the publication decided to unbundle now, Michael Brunt, senior VP-head of circulation for the Americas and global head of marketing at Economist Digital, said: “Over the last couple of years, we have found that increasing numbers of people were paying for digital-only and that there was genuine demand for both [print and digital].
“A substantial number of print subscribers had activated access to our digital content. It demonstrated demand for people reading our content in both print and in digital.
“Our subscribers really value our content, and we wanted to create a pricing structure that made sense for the way that people wanted to buy our subscription. People think it’s reasonable to pay a little more for both and to give them a choice for a lower cost if they just want print or they just want digital.”
Brunt also said that people are willing to pay for content across multiple platforms and that a large part of revenue comes from subscriptions.