News Corp., parent company of The Daily, could very well discontinue the iPad-only newspaper in coming months. According to The New York Observer, The Daily has been losing News Corp. $30 million a year, and the tabloid has been placed “on watch.” News Corp. will supposedly “reassess” The Daily after the presidential election this November.
The Daily was the first mainstream paper to be delivered exclusively on the iPad. Since The Daily was introduced onstage with Apple’s Eddy Cue in 2011, the publication has expanded to the iPhone and Android devices.
When The Daily launched, News Corp. said the publication would need 500,000 subscribers to break even, and numbers have stayed well under that figure. The decision to can The Daily may also come as a repercussion of the failure of News Corp.’s Newscore newswire.
The Daily’s iPad app currently costs $0.99 per week or $39.99 per year in the App Store. The iPhone and Android versions cost considerably less.
While The Daily was never good at making its content shareable across platforms so that potential customers could be drawn into the app, the publication has also suffered from the rise of free news apps like Flipboard.
Source: The New York Observer