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The Daily averaging just 120,000 readers per week

by Steven Sande Sep 29th 2011 at 12:30PM

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch introduced the iPad newspaper The Daily (free) almost eight months ago with expectations that the paper would easily meet the half-million subscribers required for the publication to break even. Now Bloomberg is reporting that The Daily is well behind that goal, with an estimated weekly circulation of only 120,000 readers.

The Bloomberg post cites advertising exec John Nitti of Publicis Groupe SA as saying that the 120,000 reader figure is for unique weekly visitors, which also includes readers who are taking advantage of the paper's two-week free trial. As a result, the actual number of paying subscribers is less than the total readership figure.

After the free trial, The Daily is available for US$0.99 per week or $39.99 a year. Nitti thinks that 120,000 readers is still a respectable number for The Daily, and expects that his client (Verizon) will continue to advertise on the paper. Bloomberg notes that The Daily is expanding beyond the iPad, adding a Facebook version this month and an Android edition within the next three weeks.



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The Daily is well behind that goal, with an estimated weekly circulation of only 120,000 readers
 

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13 Comments

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Gary Merinstein

120,000? ok that means all 51,000 employees and some of their family members are still subscribers. Maybe News Corp should make it an internal app, just for employee use.

September 30 2011 at 8:57 AM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
John Carter

I'm pretty sure the average NewsCorp reader calls DISH Network once a week for remote control help, doubts the moon landing actually happened, and fears our government is tracking their every move. Does a demographic that eats dinner at 4:00 sound like an potential iPad readership? They didn't really think this through.

September 29 2011 at 9:59 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
Jon Dean

NewsCorp hate aside - I actually really liked the interface when it worked, but the content was tabloid/fluff mag-quality and below. Lots of lazy, weak journalism, and definitely not worth the price. I really wanted to like it, and there were definitely some good ideas driving the product, but ultimately it was poorly executed.

September 29 2011 at 4:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Fernando Garcia

It's a Rupert Murdoch product. That's enough for me.
I don't buy the ultra right wing view of things.

Perhaps I will buy another iPad magazine, but not this.

September 29 2011 at 3:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
AWDBat

If it's a Rupert Murdoch product you have to be concerned about his cronies hacking into your iPad now. Forget that.

September 29 2011 at 1:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
U.N. Owen

'Free?' yeah - I got a WEEK free - then, Rupert & Co.  wanted $$$. It was TERRIBLE as a freebie - worse than the NY POST, if that's possible.

Can't stand anything NewsCorp.

Speaking of old Rupe.. When that hacking scandal broke out aginst his NEWS OF THE WORLD, I said; 'if he did it in the UK, I'll betcha, he's done it here.'

Guess what?

SURPRISE - he's doing it here (but, he played 'senile' at the Parliament hearing....).

Stay away from anything of Murdoch's. He's nothing but a snake-oil huckster, but, with his claws in so much of the media pie, HE is almost single-handedly the 'heart' of the ever downward spiraling of media, scandal, lack of values going on.

September 29 2011 at 1:31 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to U.N. Owen's comment
Toby Cline

Wish I could read tech blogs without NewsCorp haters contributing nothing to the discussion.

September 29 2011 at 2:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jeremyan

For an occasional reader, there is no reason to pay this much. Especially when there are so many options on the iPad: for news, games, internet, videos. If it is free, it may gets more readers.

And yes the experience with the app was not so great.

September 29 2011 at 12:42 PM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to jeremyan's comment
Russell Goldman

Especially paying for it when it has all off those damn advertisements I mean I know the news paper has ads but I could have swore it wouldn't let me swipe past the ads for a few seconds sometimes when I used it.

At one point I bought .99 for one week subscription and it didn't work kept giving me errors I had to go reenable it it my account in iTunes on the computer and it still wouldn't work.

October 01 2011 at 3:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bo Shubinsky

I used it on my vacation when I went to Mexico due to not having a constant and consistent internet connection. Here at home, however, I can get all my news for free on my web browser (on any device). I just don't feel like I should pay when I get can the same stuff (minus the prettyness) on Google News.

September 29 2011 at 12:40 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
Nate Cook

I really wanted to love The Daily, but the app performance was horrible. Overall quality was okay, but the lagging and loading was almost unbearable.

September 29 2011 at 12:38 PM Report abuse +3 rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Nate Cook's comment
Marcos

Agreed, the app was poorly written - to say it in a nice way.
Also, the content is not exactly great. Fluff for the most part. I have no problem paying for content as long as the content is worth paying for. In the case of The Daily, I think they went for the mass market least common denominator reader.

I enjoyed the crossword puzzles, though.

September 29 2011 at 2:16 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
Franko

i didn't mind the app performance so much (other than it was quite a huge PIG of a file to download every day), but i agree that it was a lot of fluffy, people-magazine type stuff mixed in with a couple more in-depth pieces and gizmodo-like tech stories. my *favorite* pieces were the "this day in history" type pieces. but yeah, overall, i just gave up on the entire publication.

September 29 2011 at 4:04 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
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