News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch today launched the much-anticipated iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, at a news event inside New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
The Daily, a $30 million venture, is the world's first newspaper designed exclusively for a tablet computer such as the iPad, and will not be supplemented with print or Web editions. The publication now delivers original coverage of news, the arts, lifestyle, sports, politics and opinion, and will costs 14 cents per day; 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. The first two weeks will be free courtesy of Verizon Communications, Murdoch said at the event.
Murdoch also noted the electronic newspaper would cost around $500,000 a week to run and expects in order for the venture to be successful the company will need to sell millions of subscriptions.
"Our ambitions are very big, but our costs are very low," said Murdoch at the event.
The Daily will delivery up to 100 pages of news and information each day and feature HD-quality video and 360-degree photos for users interaction. In addition, the publication also offers a number of social networking platforms for readers.
The Daily has employed one hundred media professionals from diverse journalism backgrounds ranging from Salon.com to the New York Times to Vanity Fair.
While News Corp. is certainly making a big bet in starting a newspaper from scratch, company executives in recent months voiced concerns over the iPad hurting the publishing giants bottom line, eating into newspaper sales and changing the landscape of paid content.
James Murdoch, who runs Europe and Asia for News Corp., told a panel of media executives in November that newspaper apps for devices such as Apple’s iPad are cannibalizing sales of physical newspapers, forcing news organizations to rethink how to monetize content in the long run.
At the same time, other global news organizations are seeking ways to monetize their content as mobile devices begin eating away at some of the Web’s digital news dominance. Google is rumored to be working on a competing Android newsstand that could launch a digital publishing format battle.
Still, despite the hoopla and interactive HD affects, Murdoch is trying to buck a trend that has seen newspaper and magazine subscriptions decline over the past decade. The Daily, for all its high tech bells and whistles, will still function as an old fashion newspaper with one edition being launched daily.
he Daily led its first day of news coverage with the crisis in Egypt.
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