“News Corp.’s The Daily is averaging about 120,000 readers a week, or less than a quarter the number the company said it needs to make money, according to an advertising executive working with the iPad-only publication,” Edmund Lee reports for Bloomberg.
“News Corp., whose Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch personally introduced the publication about eight months ago, may have even fewer paying subscribers since people can read the Daily free for two weeks,” Lee reports. “The 120,000 figure is for so-called unique weekly visitors, which includes people who pay and those who don’t, said John Nitti, executive vice president of Publicis Groupe SA ’s media-buying division Zenith Optimedia. ‘They won’t tell us how many paying subscribers, but that’s how many uniques the Daily is getting,’ said Nitti, who gets figures from the publication because he works with Verizon Wireless, a Daily sponsor that’s owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc.”
Lee reports, “The Daily’s audience is short of the 500,000 subscribers that Murdoch said in February would allow the publication to break even. After the free trial, subscribers pay 99 cents per week or $39.99 a year to read the publication.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Lynn Weiler” and “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
Wow. That’s about 119,000 more than I expected.
With all the free news services out there, did they really expect people to pony up for an unproven news source — especially one backed by Rupert Murdoch??
Boy, that’s a business plan I’d love to see.
I liked the daily when I had it for free, but I’d never pay for it.
I liked the layout/design but the lack of back issues was a big deal breaker for me.
The fox news and CNN apps are good for me. (iPad versions)
If you need $199,950,000 annually just to “break even”, perhaps it’s the cost of your project that’s the problem, Rupert?
ummm… 500,000 x $39.99 = $19,995,000
I still think that is a lot of money, considering the product is just reformatting news gathered by other operations in the News Corp business.
I still think you raise a fairly good point, but the indignation at ~$200million break even – when it is the wrong number – kind of diminishes the impact. 🙂
I would NEVER use a product much less pay for one that comes from Rupert Murdoch. Nuff said.
Me too. The fact that The Daily is from Rupert’s empire made me choose to never subscribe to it.
Unless one is an ethically-challenged ultra-conservative, who in his right mind would wish to subsidize a polluted news source? Murdoch should prepare for even higher attrition once the Justice Department make good its threat to investigate NewsCorp’s shenanigans in the US.
Unless one is an ethically-challenged ultra-liberal, who in his right mind would wish to back a polluted government? It’s common knowledge in the UK (unless you’re a hate-blinded progressive, that is), that officials in both government and law enforcement were taking bribes from NewsCorps.
See how hatred makes you look stupid? Anyone with half a brain would be more upset with corrupt elected officials than a purveyor of newspapers.
Then again, Libs never allow anything to come between them and their politics.
I don’t think you made a shred of sense.
Interesting moniker. Probably explains your inane comment.
There was nothing in the daily to read… It was all pretty pictures and no content. Rather like fox…
News Corp. actually does have a good iPad news app – the Times of London. It’s chock-full of news, unlike The Daily. New users get a 30-day free subscription.
Journalism in general is and always has been filled with owners and publishers who used newspapers and periodicals to push their agendas. William Randolph Hearst once said that if they get the facts correct most of the time, that would be acceptable to him. He also said about the U.S. becoming militarily active in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, that if someone provided him with the photos, he would provide the war.
He was constantly accused of making up stories, embellishing facts, running phony photos, and flat-out lies to sell papers and whip people into a frenzy. He regarded wars as good for circulation.
And he is seen as one of the founding fathers of American journalism.
So what Murdoch has done is nothing new, and pretty minor compared to what publishers have done throughout history.
If I’m not mistaken, it was Hearst who invented shorting stocks as well. Borrow a stock, sell it, trash the company in your paper, stock plummets, buy the stock back at the lower price, pocket the difference.
Yeah, newspapers always pushed agendas. Thing is, though, those agendas didn’t use to all be on the same side. You had your lefty papers and your righty papers. These days, lefty papers are hard to find, despite the myth of the “liberal media”.
——RM
I am a dyed-in-the-wool lefty lib, and wouldn’t pay for a Murdoch-owned news publication (though I have no problem enjoying his entertainment properties). That being said though, I doubt Murdoch’s rightward lean has a darn thing to do with The Daily’s failure. Since has being owned by conservative hurt any news property? You’d think it would be an advantage, to be honest.
Nah — People just don’t think it’s worth the money.
——RM
That’s because most of the target audience – people who listen to Fox News – can’t actually read. #FoxFail
I liked the layout, but the content lacked the depth of a rain puddle.
I had subscribed for The Daily for a week or two ,and
found not many articles worth reading ,for a foreigner.
For me Bloomberg Businessweek is more interesting.
I have subscribed to it off and on. The app itself has improved a lot since it’s inception and the journalism doesn’t seem all that biased, and certainly isn’t right leaning, or whatever. But the problem is that it just isn’t very interesting. The articles are super short and half the issue is photos of celebrities every day.
But I’m not inherently against the idea of paying 99 cents a week for good journalism, no matter who owns the company. But The Daily, so far, isn’t worth reading.
hummm… Let’s see… The old formula that we used to use to describe bad product was ‘Garbage in-Garbage out’…. Wonder if that still applies….. It’s a Murdoch rag, what do YOU think…..
I’m a subscriber and I enjoy it.
Anybody but Murdoch. He’s the Antichrist of journalism!
it’s absurely hilarious to watch all the nutjobs reflexivly bray at any mention of Rupert Murdoch and “‘Faux News'”, get a life!
absurely? i meant absolutely
damn you touch keypad, you’ve bested me again! I still love you