News Corp. Considering Canceling 'The Daily'?

MacRumors · Jul 12, 2012, 09:47 AM

Back in February 2011, Apple executive Eddy Cue was on hand for the launch of The Daily, a new tablet-focused news publication from News Corp. that premiered on the iPad.

Availability of The Daily has since expanded to both Android tablets and the iPhone, but questions about the publication's viability have remained as revenues remain well below the tens of millions of dollars being pumped into it.

In a larger article from The New York Observer (via TUAW) addressing the demise of News Corp.'s Newscore newswire service, sources suggest that The Daily may also be on thin ice.

Quote:

In addition, there are internal rumors that The Daily has been put "on watch." According to a source the status of the groundbreaking iPad tabloid--which loses $30 million a year--will be reassessed after the November 6 election.

Pricing for the iPad version of The Daily is currently set at $0.99 per week or $39.99 per year via In App Subscription, with the iPhone version being offered at roughly half-price on monthly and yearly subscriptions.

Article Link: News Corp. Considering Canceling 'The Daily'?

184550 · Jul 12, 2012, 10:01 AM

Pity. Could be a good publication if the editorial leadership changed hands.

Mad Mac Maniac · Jul 12, 2012, 10:02 AM

I had a subscription for about 5 weeks or so and just canceled it last week.

I found the app to be very slow and laggy. It needed to download new articles every time I opened it, which caused more waiting. And I found there weren't really that many articles that interested me. It was kind of a novel thing, but not at all necessary. I found myself forcing myself to read it every day, and look through the articles just to convince myself that it was worth it. Many of the articles I had already seen from free sources.

Free news aggregator is the way to go. Personally I like zite and pulse.

NMF · Jul 12, 2012, 10:10 AM

That reminds me, I need to cancel my sub. Cool concept but damn is the app laggy, not a very good user experience. I was always waiting for them to fix it and they never did.

jumanji · Jul 12, 2012, 10:11 AM

too expensive especially when you get the information for free on the web.

Trik · Jul 12, 2012, 10:19 AM

But the content was horrible. I cancelled my subscription after their "Hillary drinks a lot" article. That was horrible.

They found pictures of her drinking alcohol over the course of a few years and made it look like she was an alcoholic. No matter what your political leanings, that was BS "journalism".

xenotek · Jul 12, 2012, 10:37 AM

And nothing of value was lost.

I'm all for the growth of new media titles, but will always applaud the demise of bad journalism.

Chris Blount · Jul 12, 2012, 10:38 AM

Too bad. I read it every day. I like The Daily myself.

jclardy · Jul 12, 2012, 10:47 AM

I subscribed to the Daily for a while. It was terrible on iPad 1, but on 2 or 3 it ran fine, other than having to wait to download when you opened it.

The problem was that I already had seen pretty much all the news they covered from Twitter or RSS. Some editorials were cool, but not worth the admission price to me.

scaredpoet · Jul 12, 2012, 10:48 AM

It's a real shame because the formatting and presentating of the content was absolutely beautiful. Had the content BEING presented not been so trashy, it definitely would've been worth the price tag to me.

For that reason, i really hope that this isn't seen as some bellweather for how journalism formatted for mobile devices isn't workable. It definitely is. IF what you're doing is actually journalism, and not the junk that murdoch likes to out out there as "news."

NYTimes has the other problem: good content, lackluster presentation and formatting.

Kaibelf · Jul 12, 2012, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trik

But the content was horrible. I cancelled my subscription after their "Hillary drinks a lot" article. That was horrible.

They found pictures of her drinking alcohol over the course of a few years and made it look like she was an alcoholic. No matter what your political leanings, that was BS "journalism".

I couldn't agree more. The articles they provided, frankly, were insulting to my intelligence. It was like a glorified issue of Star Magazine. Shameful.

appleguy123 · Jul 12, 2012, 11:01 AM

I remain subscribed to the daily, even though I rarely use it. The content seems mentally vacuous, but some of the articles, and the formatting is always great. I will be sad to lose the only thing in my newsstand.

robd003 · Jul 12, 2012, 11:19 AM

I wonder why the user experience wasn't better considering they also developed the Wall Street Journal app and I've never had issues with it.

Radio · Jul 12, 2012, 11:25 AM

Is there no hope for new paper publications?

It was neat to play with but not worth the price.

But what is these days when everything is free?

mrxak · Jul 12, 2012, 11:27 AM

I never read The Daily, but I liked the idea of The Daily, and hoped more publications would follow its model. Hopefully others in the media business see this as a failure of a particular publication and not a failure of the platform.

Dionte · Jul 12, 2012, 11:28 AM

It's the same stories I see elsewhere on the net for free, why would I pay for them?

bdhokie · Jul 12, 2012, 11:35 AM

I don't entirely get the comments on content. The news articles are no different than others on various news sites. Yes, it may have a more conservative bent but that doesn't make it trashy. And yes, like every other content provider, they have too many fluff articles. I could do without the Gossip section myself and wish the sports section is better. However the overall news section reports on the news.

I think the problem is that we've all been conditioned to get something for free or next to free. We complain if we need to pay $40 a year for content and complain if an app has too much advertising. Perhaps dropping the fee to $10 a year would result in more sales, but I suspect they've done their research and that's not likely.

I hope the Daily lives. Perhaps they can beef up the content a bit and tweak the pricing and remain profitable. The delivery of the content is the best I've seen.

MajorTCS · Jul 12, 2012, 11:54 AM

like so many "apps" it is not easy to use and not up to date. I prefer the web based (normal) New York Times for $15.00 a month.

Kaibelf · Jul 12, 2012, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bdhokie

I don't entirely get the comments on content. The news articles are no different than others on various news sites. Yes, it may have a more conservative bent but that doesn't make it trashy. And yes, like every other content provider, they have too many fluff articles. I could do without the Gossip section myself and wish the sports section is better. However the overall news section reports on the news.

I think the problem is that we've all been conditioned to get something for free or next to free. We complain if we need to pay $40 a year for content and complain if an app has too much advertising. Perhaps dropping the fee to $10 a year would result in more sales, but I suspect they've done their research and that's not likely.

I hope the Daily lives. Perhaps they can beef up the content a bit and tweak the pricing and remain profitable. The delivery of the content is the best I've seen.

As mentioned above, if you want to pay any amount of money to subscribe to a publication that can cobble together 7-8 photos of someone over the course of years and accuse them of having a drinking problem, then that's your business. I don't hand someone money to lie to me.

stuarty2003 · Jul 12, 2012, 12:17 PM

The Guardian + The Economist have shown how to do these things properly.

ristlin · Jul 12, 2012, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trik

But the content was horrible. I cancelled my subscription after their "Hillary drinks a lot" article. That was horrible.

They found pictures of her drinking alcohol over the course of a few years and made it look like she was an alcoholic. No matter what your political leanings, that was BS "journalism".

Indeed.

Amazing Iceman · Jul 12, 2012, 12:57 PM

Too bad... Unfortunately, having other apps available for free such as USA Today, Reuters News Pro, BBC, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and more to choose from would definitely make it difficult for a paid subscription news service to survive.
Maybe they need to modify their revenue source to be Ad-based instead, if it does make sense to them.

charlituna · Jul 12, 2012, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scaredpoet

It's a real shame because the formatting and presentating of the content was absolutely beautiful.

Agreed. They could make a fortune licensing that formatting to other companies that are still putting out DRM'd pdfs and calling it a digital magazine.

madmaxmedia · Jul 12, 2012, 03:28 PM

I don't think they ever really presented the journalistic intent of 'The Daily', if so I don't remember it. From what I recall they focused on how spiffy it was as an iPad app.

Regardless of your political leanings and what you think about News Corp, the whole thing seems technically very spiffy but muddled content-wise. It's like advertising your new book by talking about how great the reading experience is, without really talking about the book itself.

It was never presented well enough to me to make me interested in the magazine itself, to want to learn more about it. And there's already a lot of great ways to get news on an iPad.

ibis99 · Jul 12, 2012, 09:15 PM

What can one say. Write trash and lies and charge a fee? I can get it for free on my local Fox station.

Jul 12, 2012, 10:02 AM	#3
Mad Mac Maniac macrumors 68030 Join Date: Oct 2007	I had a subscription for about 5 weeks or so and just canceled it last week. I found the app to be very slow and laggy. It needed to download new articles every time I opened it, which caused more waiting. And I found there weren't really that many articles that interested me. It was kind of a novel thing, but not at all necessary. I found myself forcing myself to read it every day, and look through the articles just to convince myself that it was worth it. Many of the articles I had already seen from free sources. Free news aggregator is the way to go. Personally I like zite and pulse. __________________ Now I have a Signature!
	1

Jul 12, 2012, 10:10 AM	#4
NMF macrumors 6502a Join Date: Oct 2011	That reminds me, I need to cancel my sub. Cool concept but damn is the app laggy, not a very good user experience. I was always waiting for them to fix it and they never did. __________________ MacBook Pro 13" (2012) \| Core i7 @ 2.9 GHz \| 256 GB Samsung 830 SSD \| 16 GB Corsair RAM Thunderbolt Display iPad mini 32 GB WiFi iPhone 5 32 GB Apple TV 3
	3

Jul 12, 2012, 10:19 AM	#6
Trik macrumors member Join Date: Jan 2011	I thought the app worked fine... But the content was horrible. I cancelled my subscription after their "Hillary drinks a lot" article. That was horrible. They found pictures of her drinking alcohol over the course of a few years and made it look like she was an alcoholic. No matter what your political leanings, that was BS "journalism".
	25

Jul 12, 2012, 10:37 AM	#7
xenotek macrumors newbie Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ashland, OR	And nothing of value was lost. I'm all for the growth of new media titles, but will always applaud the demise of bad journalism.
	13

Jul 12, 2012, 10:47 AM	#9
jclardy macrumors 68000 Join Date: Oct 2008	I subscribed to the Daily for a while. It was terrible on iPad 1, but on 2 or 3 it ran fine, other than having to wait to download when you opened it. The problem was that I already had seen pretty much all the news they covered from Twitter or RSS. Some editorials were cool, but not worth the admission price to me. __________________ Swift Fox Software \| Rocket Chimp (iTunes - Free + Universal!) \| TargetTap Lite (iTunes) \| TargetTap (iTunes)
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 10:01 AM	#2
184550 Guest Join Date: May 2008	Pity. Could be a good publication if the editorial leadership changed hands.
	6

Jul 12, 2012, 10:11 AM	#5
jumanji macrumors member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Austin, TX	too expensive especially when you get the information for free on the web.
	4

Jul 12, 2012, 10:38 AM	#8
Chris Blount macrumors 65816 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Antonio, TX	Too bad. I read it every day. I like The Daily myself.
	1

Jul 12, 2012, 10:48 AM	#10
scaredpoet macrumors 68040 Join Date: Apr 2007	It's a real shame because the formatting and presentating of the content was absolutely beautiful. Had the content BEING presented not been so trashy, it definitely would've been worth the price tag to me. For that reason, i really hope that this isn't seen as some bellweather for how journalism formatted for mobile devices isn't workable. It definitely is. IF what you're doing is actually journalism, and not the junk that murdoch likes to out out there as "news." NYTimes has the other problem: good content, lackluster presentation and formatting. __________________ If you're not a clairvoyant, then you shouldn't be speaking for a dead guy. The Apple "QC cycle," explained. Slow data, fewer bars? No, you don't have a bad SIM.
	7

Jul 12, 2012, 11:01 AM	#12
appleguy123 macrumors 603 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: 15 minutes in the future	I remain subscribed to the daily, even though I rarely use it. The content seems mentally vacuous, but some of the articles, and the formatting is always great. I will be sad to lose the only thing in my newsstand. __________________ [Steve Jobs was] brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it. -Barack Obama
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 11:19 AM	#13
robd003 macrumors newbie Join Date: Aug 2007	WSJ app rules in comparison I wonder why the user experience wasn't better considering they also developed the Wall Street Journal app and I've never had issues with it.
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 11:25 AM	#14
Radio macrumors 65816 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Central California	Is there no hope for new paper publications? It was neat to play with but not worth the price. But what is these days when everything is free?
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 11:27 AM	#15
mrxak macrumors 6502a Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Drifting through space in a broken escape pod	I never read The Daily, but I liked the idea of The Daily, and hoped more publications would follow its model. Hopefully others in the media business see this as a failure of a particular publication and not a failure of the platform. __________________ Phones Will Kill You
	2

Jul 12, 2012, 11:28 AM	#16
Dionte macrumors 6502 Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Detroit	It's the same stories I see elsewhere on the net for free, why would I pay for them?
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 11:35 AM	#17
bdhokie macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2010	Daily Content I don't entirely get the comments on content. The news articles are no different than others on various news sites. Yes, it may have a more conservative bent but that doesn't make it trashy. And yes, like every other content provider, they have too many fluff articles. I could do without the Gossip section myself and wish the sports section is better. However the overall news section reports on the news. I think the problem is that we've all been conditioned to get something for free or next to free. We complain if we need to pay $40 a year for content and complain if an app has too much advertising. Perhaps dropping the fee to $10 a year would result in more sales, but I suspect they've done their research and that's not likely. I hope the Daily lives. Perhaps they can beef up the content a bit and tweak the pricing and remain profitable. The delivery of the content is the best I've seen.
	3

Jul 12, 2012, 11:54 AM	#18
MajorTCS macrumors regular Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Farmington CT	like so many "apps" it is not easy to use and not up to date. I prefer the web based (normal) New York Times for $15.00 a month. __________________ iPad, 32GB, Wi-Fi (original) iPad mini, 32GB, Wi-Fi
	1

Jul 12, 2012, 12:17 PM	#20
stuarty2003 macrumors member Join Date: May 2009 Location: Scotland	The Guardian + The Economist have shown how to do these things properly. __________________ MacBook Pro - 2.0Ghz Core i7, AMD Radeon 6490m, 8Gb Ram, 250Gb SSD \|iPhone 4S 16Gb \| iPad2 WiFi + 3G 64Gb \| Apple TV (2nd Gen) \| iPod Classic 160Gb.
	1

Jul 12, 2012, 12:57 PM	#22
Amazing Iceman macrumors 68020 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Florida, U.S.A.	Too bad... Unfortunately, having other apps available for free such as USA Today, Reuters News Pro, BBC, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and more to choose from would definitely make it difficult for a paid subscription news service to survive. Maybe they need to modify their revenue source to be Ad-based instead, if it does make sense to them. __________________ 17" MacBook Pro (2007) iPad 3G / new iPad LTE 64GB AppleTV 2 Follow @AmazingIceman for useful tech info and more (mention MacRumors).
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 03:28 PM	#24
madmaxmedia macrumors 68030 Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Los Angeles, CA	I don't think they ever really presented the journalistic intent of 'The Daily', if so I don't remember it. From what I recall they focused on how spiffy it was as an iPad app. Regardless of your political leanings and what you think about News Corp, the whole thing seems technically very spiffy but muddled content-wise. It's like advertising your new book by talking about how great the reading experience is, without really talking about the book itself. It was never presented well enough to me to make me interested in the magazine itself, to want to learn more about it. And there's already a lot of great ways to get news on an iPad.
	0

Jul 12, 2012, 09:15 PM	#25
ibis99 macrumors member Join Date: Jul 2010	Lipstick on a pig What can one say. Write trash and lies and charge a fee? I can get it for free on my local Fox station.
	8

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