It seems News Corp's iPad-only newspaper The Daily is still way off break-even subscriptions eight months after launch.
Bloomberg is quoting a senior advertising executive saying the US-based subscription publication is averaging only 120,000 readers a week - far short of its 500,000 break-even point.
It was Rupert Murdoch who said 500,000 subscribers would cover costs. The Daily disappointed potential readers in the UK when it recently appeared in the UK Apple App Store. But what's on offer is simply the US edition.
News Corp., whose Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch personally introduced the publication about eight months ago, may have even fewer paying subscribers since people can read the Daily free for two weeks. The 120,000 figure is for so-called unique weekly visitors, which includes people who pay and those who don’t, said John Nitti, executive vice president of Publicis Groupe SA (PUB)’s media-buying division Zenith Optimedia.
“They won’t tell us how many paying subscribers, but that’s how many uniques the Daily is getting,” said Nitti, who gets figures from the publication because he works with Verizon Wireless, a Daily sponsor that’s owned by Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Vodafone Group Plc.
(Source: Bloomberg)
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