Remember The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s iPad-only newspaper? You can bet the accountants at publisher News Corp. do, because they’re bathed in the red ink of the project’s $10 million first-quarter loss.
Engadget is reporting that News Corp. has lost another $10 million on the iPad-only newspaper The Daily, and that’s just from the first quarter alone. Publisher Rupert Murdoch claims to have spent $30 million prior to the launch to get things rolling for the highly anticipated launch, which wound up being fraught by bugs that took several weeks and a few updates to finally get a handle on.
Perhaps the better news is that The Daily app has been downloaded 800,000 times, although News Corp. isn’t saying how many of those folks stuck around when the free trial period ended. The media conglomerate stressed during its first quarter results that The Daily is “still a work in progress,” but one has to wonder how much red ink they can take on (remember MySpace, which is now up for sale?).
News Corp. may be looking ahead to the launch of The Daily on another platform, presumably Android tablets next, to be their saving grace -- but we all know that Android users love them some free apps, so how that will pan out is anyone’s guess.
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(Image courtesy of Engadget)
Geoduck
May 05, 2011 at 8:02am
I'd like to see this succeed. Good Journalism costs money and only a paid system will cover the costs without the risk of advertisers exorcizing editorial influence. It's a good thing. If The Daily folds I can see this chilling any other efforts toward this.
However IMO Rupert Murdoch has nothing to do with good journalism. All of his News Corp productions just ooze bias like a hagfish oozes slime. I don't watch FOX and I won't be subscribing to the Daily. I don't even trust the Wall Street Journal any longer because it's now a News Corp drone.
So I want the idea to succeed but want Murdoch to fail.
Very ambivalent on this.
rsalermo
May 05, 2011 at 7:31am
This has to be long term investment. I hope people are not looking at this project and expecting a quick turnaround and profits. This is a shift is the news business model. They will need to be patient and put out a great content that people are willing to pay for.
