In a year that can not be called a winner for the Murdoch brand (don't mention the phone tapping) the Murdoch empire has announced that it will shut down its purpose built tablet app "The Daily". The reason being given is a lack of readers. ABC reports that "Murdoch's News Corporation has announced it will cease publication of its iPad app, The Daily, from December 15, due to a lack of readers." - the virtual newspaper was launched in February 2011.
On its launch The Daily was described by Murdoch as "exclusively designed for touchscreen tablets and costing 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year - a bold experiment.
On its demise Murdoch is quoted "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."
At its peak The Daily was believed to have reached 100,000 paying subscribers contrasting with Murdoch's reported expectation when launching the digital paper that it would need to recruit 500,000 readers a week to break even. In July, he announced it would cut 29 per cent of its staff, or 50 employees.
One identified failing was that The Daily was initially designed to work on Apple's iPad tablet, and only later made available for some Android devices and smartphones. Many said that relying on the Apple platform turned out to be a mistake, limiting its appeal and market.
Another failing is to quote reports - "Research has since shown that tablet owners are 'digital omnivores' who consume media seamlessly across tablets, smartphones, PCs and print publications. To serve them news on only one platform is not satisfying."
Indeed it would seem to any observer that Murdoch has tried to meet the shifting tastes for news provided by the ability to obtain it from many sources with an old world model based on the print newspaper enhanced by technology and flashing lights. To this observer it seems little wonder that The Daily has failed.
Another issue is that we now live in an age of aggregation and "freemium" news and information which is quick and easy to obtain in many ways - for example, Google and in particular Google News, Twitter where I can follow like minded people who point and lead me to the stuff I want to read or even directly from the source of the news as in a government sites, associations site etc. It would seem the greatest threat to print media lies in the adherence to old business models and a failure to realize that people no longer pay in the traditional way (subscription for example) and further, even if there is a bill at the end, they want to get quite a good deal for free - at least enough to get so hooked that they will happily pay a small amount in ever increasing quantity to keep the supply (one reason Apps have become such a pervasive way of delivering software, ads and information).
It will be interesting to see what Murdoch does next with respect to print media but whatever it is it will require more innovation and entirely different business model.
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