Murdoch Shutters The Daily: Will Failure Impact Tablet-Based Publishing?
By Karla Robinson
December 4, 2012
December 4, 2012
- The Daily, an iPad-only newspaper, claimed to be a “fresh take on the news you need to know,” providing content specifically designed for touchscreens. But Rupert Murdoch’s experiment in tablet journalism, which cost half a million dollars per week to operate, will stop publishing this month, potentially signaling trouble for tablet-centric publishing.
- “As failures go, this one is pretty spectacular,” suggests ReadWrite. “News Corporation worked closely with Steve Jobs himself to get the world’s first iPad-only newspaper off the ground, having invested $130 million by the time it launched in February of last year.”
- “The world’s second largest media conglomerate teamed up with the most valuable tech company on the planet to launch a product that attempted to reimagine news for the digital age. And it flopped.”
- The publication’s demise was in part caused by the iPad-only focus. With limited Web presence and a strict paywall, attracting subscribers proved difficult. Also, Apple is something of a profit drain with a 30 percent cut from publishers’ subscription sales.
- The format itself is also challenging. “Tablet-based magazines and newspapers might have more gee-whiz bells and whistles than print, but the Web can still be a faster, less clunky medium for publishing,” the article states. “Indeed, research suggests that readers prefer their tablets’ Web browsers to the meaty, slow-to-update and even more slow-to-evolve native apps that publishers have been eagerly developing since Steve Jobs first held up the iPad on stage in 2010.”
- “Traditional publishers, many of whom looked to the iPad as their digital savior when it launched, have had mixed results,” the article explains, noting there are, however, other companies that are still experimenting with tablets, albeit on a smaller scale.
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In a related story, Murdoch announced that News Corp. will split into two separate companies. The publishing company will keep the name News Corporation while the Fox Group will include Fox Broadcasting, 20th Century Fox and cable channels such as Fox News and FX.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/news-corp-announces-its-corporate-split-and-the-closing-of-the-daily/
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