Murdoch's Daily: News industry saviour or sideshow?
New York's Guggenheim Museum was the focus for all eyes in the newspaper industry yesterday afternoon.
The object attracting interest was not some ancient artefact but an Apple iPad or rather a brand new newspaper which will only be available on this and eventually other tablets.
The Daily is attracting such interest because it's been launched by a man who has repeatedly proved that he can change the terms of the media industry's game.
Rupert Murdoch now appears to believe that he has found the Holy Grail - a device that will persuade readers it is still worth paying for journalism and it comes in the shape of an iPad.
The cynics will mock his infatuation with Apple's tablet, but then his obsession with another technology, satellite television, was also derided and look how that turned out.
Mr Murdoch was supposed to be unveiling The Daily with Steve Jobs a couple of weeks ago, then Apple's CEO took sick leave. But News Corp's boss did reveal that he'd spoken to Mr Jobs last week, who'd told him his new product was "a great app". No surprise there, because Apple has made sure that it gets a share of the revenue from this and any other newspaper apps.
For once, Murdoch's rivals in the newspaper trade are also hoping that he does succeed - they are equally desperate for a life-raft in these miserable times for their trade. So what's The Daily like and will enough people stump up their 99 cents each week to make it pay?
I've had a brief play with the digital newspaper, having acquired it using a friend's American iTunes account. Once you've managed to install what is a fairly chunky download, you find a very slick product. You arrive at a carousel, where you can swing through sections which start with news, followed rapidly by gossip, opinion, arts and life, apps and games and sports.
There is hard news - The Daily has a reporter in Cairo who has delivered the first edition's lead story about Egypt, and there are some stunning photographs from the protests there, coupled with a pithy summary of how the country got to this state. It is though, The Daily, not the Hourly, or Minutely, so what you get is yesterday's news - the Egypt story already looked way out of date.
But hard news is not what this paper is about, it's more of a magazine. The overall impression is of middle-market frothy fun with plenty of multi-media twists, from the video clips that accompany movie reviews to Sudoku that allows you to compete with others online.
Although this is a product that is only available to paying customers, the paywall is somewhat more permeable than those surrounding the Times and Sunday Times in Britain. You can share articles with others on social networks, even if they're not subscribers, which should be a good way of creating more buzz about the paper.
But will The Daily win enough subscribers to cover its costs? At less than a dollar a week it is priced far more competitively than some traditional papers with iPad editions, the Times in London, for instance, costs £2($3) a week. So it shouldn't be beyond the means of those affluent Americans prepared to pay for a iPad. The question is what will keep them paying that dollar week after week.
They are presumably the kind of people who are already more likely to be newspaper readers, and while they may give the Murdoch effort a try, it is not clear that they will stick with a product which does not give them content they cannot get elsewhere. The evidence so far is that users flock to try out the first editions of magazines like Wired on the iPad, then melt away when the next one comes along.
But Rupert Murdoch seemed supremely confident about the finances of his new venture. He told the journalists at the launch that after writing off the $30m development costs, The Daily would cost less than $500,000 a week to run and that, he implied, would be a piece of cake.
Now remember, Apple takes a cut though perhaps less than the 30% it charges other app developers. So a rough calculation suggests that he needs nearly three quarters of a million subscribers to keep paying their one dollar a week, a hefty proportion of current iPad owners in the United States.
Still, the media mogul told us that there would be 50 million Americans would own a tablet of some kind by the end of 2011.So if the buzz around The Daily convinces a lot of these new tablet users to give it a try then maybe Mr Murdoch's new baby will manage to pay its way.
If that happens, the beleaguered newspaper industry will raise a cheer but it will still be just a small victory in the campaign to find a new business model for journalism. And Rupert Murdoch will still have to work out whether it's worth carrying on printing those old-fashioned papers which cost so much to deliver to a dwindling bunch of readers
PS Apologies in an earlier post it read that all eyes were on the Smithsonian when in should have said the Guggenheim Museum.
I'm 
Comment number 1.
At 3rd Feb 2011, DT1984 wrote:Only available on the Apple iPad - if some of the farcical fines for anti-competition in the past are anything to go by this definitely is...
Mind you, that might just be my blind repulsion of everything Murdoch and Jobs!!
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Comment number 2.
At 3rd Feb 2011, MyVoiceinYrHead wrote:Likes:
Updated content - makes it different to 'the project'
Interactive content - use of HD video etc - same as 'the project'
Dislikes:
US only! Why are Ö÷²¥´óÐã reviewing it??
Weekly subscription, I'd want to buy it ad hoc when I have time to read at a DAILY price
Big download, not good for 3G
It's a magazine - not the newspaper promised.
News Corp have all but admitted that the daily newspaper doesn't have a future :(
Looks like I'll be sticking with Google, Ö÷²¥´óÐã and twitter for my news.
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Comment number 3.
At 3rd Feb 2011, WelshBluebird1 wrote:" It is though, The Daily, not the Hourly, or Minutely, so what you get is yesterday's news - the Egypt story already looked way out of date."
And that is the big problem for me.
@DT1984
News Corp have already said it will come to other tablets too.
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Comment number 4.
At 3rd Feb 2011, Ho-Man Yau wrote:My problem is that its an ipad thing only, and trust me, not everyone has one
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Comment number 5.
At 3rd Feb 2011, Le Dave wrote:Has anyone seen the privacy policy yet? You're basically paying Murdoch to take your personal details and then do with them as he sees fit. They say they will only provide 'personally identifiable details' to other parties when it is to do with the operation of the publication but one would assume that extends to advertisers too.
I've never really trusted Murdoch so subscribing to his latest venture is probably not for me. The fact that I see no point in owning a tablet device is another story.
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Comment number 6.
At 3rd Feb 2011, Dominic Pettifer wrote:With the web I have the ability to share content. I'm constantly posting links to interesting websites and articles via Twitter or Facebook, or to work colleagues via email, instant messaging programs, or on internet forums and chat rooms and so on. In turn other people post links on their Twitter/Facebook feeds. It's how I discover interest topics and learn about fascinating new ideas. This discoverability and sharing is what makes the World Wide Web great. Heck, there are even dozens of popular websites built specifically around this concept (Digg, reddit, StumbleUpon, Buzz etc.).
With a walled off app, built for a specific device, this sharing and discoverability isn't possible, or made extremely difficalt. It's a problem that internet/digital online newspapers will have to solve in order to remain relevant. Although I've just read that The Daily does have a sharing feature in it, though I'm curious how it works. If I share an article via Twitter, do my Twitter followers get to read to whole thing, or a cut down version?
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Comment number 7.
At 4th Feb 2011, sagat4 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 8.
At 4th Feb 2011, Kevin_000 wrote:Who can tell whether it is a sideshow or not at this stage? That paper will go seems fairly innevitable.
However for me a far more important media development is the Guardian Online Comment.
Oh, and Dot Rory of course ;)
This Murdoch development is another good reason to go for an Android!
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Comment number 9.
At 4th Feb 2011, Mark_MWFC wrote:This is going to fail so horribly it's difficult to put into words.
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Comment number 10.
At 4th Feb 2011, SuperSonic4 wrote:1. "Only available on the Apple iPad - if some of the farcical fines for anti-competition in the past are anything to go by this definitely is...
Mind you, that might just be my blind repulsion of everything Murdoch and Jobs!!"
Couldn't have put it better myself. Don't forget that both those men hate freedom unless it's their version of freedom
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Comment number 11.
At 4th Feb 2011, matti76 wrote:Has anyone seen the privacy policy yet? You're basically paying Murdoch to take your personal details and then do with them as he sees fit. They say they will only provide 'personally identifiable details' to other parties when it is to do with the operation of the publication but one would assume that extends to advertisers too.
I've never really trusted Murdoch so subscribing to his latest venture is probably not for me. The fact that I see no point in owning a tablet device is another story.
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1. Downloaded The Daily. 2. Installed The Daily. 3. Read 4. Deleted The Daily.
Doing the rounds on Twitter of late. :)
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Comment number 12.
At 5th Feb 2011, Kevin_000 wrote:You know moderator - I am not coming back here.. (Posting on the Beeb)
Moderating every comment before posting is totally sad... no matter how liberally or carefully it is done.
Over at the Guardian posts go up immediately and it is the users who alert the mods.
It works very well.
Come up to speed... controlling the public's speech is gone... Yes you have to maintain standards... but you will be bypassed in time if you don't allow our voices... and then moderate... Take a good hard look at the Guardian online... they have it oh, so right by comparison....
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Comment number 13.
At 5th Feb 2011, nerdsunited wrote:When I was in school I used to put loads of colours and pictures into my essays to make them look better to get a higher mark. Unfortunately, I would still get a low mark because the actual word content was rubbish. This is the problem with The Daily, and most of what Murdoch does - The glossy presentation style is great, but the real content is rubbish.
The newspaper industry is in a poor state because the people that actually want to spend time reading content want quality journalism. Unfortunately, it appear most of the current journalists have the same idea about submitting an article as I did with my essays.
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Comment number 14.
At 5th Feb 2011, Chris Brookfield wrote:<RICHPOST>Has anyone tried carrying an iPad around all day, not exactly something you can just put in your pocket, its not to bad for the girls, but us guys are going to have to start carrying handbags or have suits or jackets that look lob sided, or we can all start wearing combat trousers!!<BR /><BR /><p>Chris Brookfield<br><BR /><a href="https://www.uraugmentedreality.com/">Augmented Reality</a></p><BR /><BR /><BR /></RICHPOST>
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Comment number 15.
At 7th Feb 2011, IanKemmish wrote:Surely the thing most worthy of debate is the fact that the content is free and available on all platforms (try "The Daily Indexed"), and you're only paying for the fancy iPad navigation.
In a world of rational consumers, such a model would of course fail, but in a world of rational consumers there'd be no ringtone millionaires either. People are willing to pay more for glitz and convenience than they are for information. At the worst, it may be a canny market intelligence gathering exercise.
I agree, though, that most of the articles read as if they fell off a syndicated wire -- even my favourite, the Amish milk-smugglers, is three years out of date.
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Comment number 16.
At 9th Feb 2011, Graphis wrote:If I want to read yesterday's news, or even yesterday's in-depth analysis, I'll pick up a newspaper.
Sorry Mr Murdoch, you can tart up old news as much as you like, it's still old news.
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