The Daily digital newspaper closing down on 15 December

3 Dec 2012

Sluggish growth has killed digital newspaper The Daily. News Corporation will pull the plug on its product on 15 December, not even two years after launch on the Apple iPad.

The Daily was to have been made for all tablet products and media devices, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch said when the product launched in February 2011 for 14 cents a day or US$39.99 a year.

The Daily’s intention had been to breathe life back into media again and take advantage of the tablet computing age, he had said.

Now, Murdoch said, “The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation.

“Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term. Therefore, we will take the very best of what we have learned at The Daily and apply it to all our properties.”

With the closure of The Daily, its resources and some of its staff is moving to The New York Post, such as The Daily’s editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo, who will become publisher of the tabloid.

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com