Murdoch Hacks Off The Daily

 (Photo credit: Scott Beale)

Less than two years after its splashy debut (see "TUOL" post 1/28/11), News Corp.-owned iPad newspaper, The Daily, will cease publication December 15.

According to reports in Fortune, The New York Times and Business Insider, The Daily was losing as much as $30 million annually since it first appeared in February 2011. Its Editor-in-Chief, Jesse Angelo, will become Publisher of the New York Post. News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch said an undisclosed number of Daily staffers, along with technology and other assets of the electronic paper, also will be folded into the Post.

"We could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long term," Murdoch conceded. Business Insider reports that editorial staffers being jettisoned will receive three-months severance pay. 

The Daily lost a third of its then 170-member workforce last summer because of lagging ad revenue and circulation (see "TUOL" post 8/1/12). Reuters first reported The Daily's imminent demise late last week.

Murdoch's Daily Tough Tablet to Swallow--50 Staffers Pink-Slipped

(Photo credit: robjewitt)Rupert Murdoch's The Daily, News Corp.'s $30 million national digital news outlet designed for tablets and touchscreen devices that made its splashy debut on Groundhog Day a year ago (see "TUOL" post 1/28/11), has laid off 29 percent of its full-time staff, with 50 employees cut loose, All Things Digital.com reports.

Other changes at The Daily include scrapping the opinion section and relying on content partners, such as FoxSports, to fill its sports section, according to the All Things Digital article. Additionally, the i-Pad only journal will switch to a portrait-only view.