Digital Subscribers Way Up for News Corp. in UK, But Print Readers Steadily Down

Zacks: "News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation, which began charging readers for online content for The Times of London and Sunday Times of London, in early July 2010, witnessed a surge in the number of digital subscribers -- up approximately 60% during a four-month period, Bloomberg reports." BUT: Print subscriber numbers are down, a 12.1% fall in the past year. Digital readers pay considerably less than print readers. Digital subscribers pay 8.67 pounds per month, while newsstand buyers pay 8.70 pounds per week. FURTHER NOTE: The paywall in question is non-porous, as opposed to the one just launched by The New York Times. Very different animal. Much easier for would-be readers to "game" the latter without paying.

Wall Street Journal Adds 200,000 Mobile-Device Subscribers

WSJ: "The Wall Street Journal has added 200,000 paying subscribers who access the newspaper via mobile devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad and Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle."

Want to Read The Daily? No iPad, No Problem!

Yeah, but what lesson will the Times take away from this info? NYTimes: "Well, that didn’t take long. The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s big push into iPad-based publishing, was introduced on Wednesday. And on Thursday morning, an unsanctioned Web site appeared with links to every article in The Daily, free on the Web. ... "

On eve of 'The Daily' launch, rival iPad apps offer previews

AppleInsider:

Ahead of News Corp's unveiling of The Daily digital newspaper on Wednesday, developers showed off competing iPad apps, including a social news app from The New York Times and a digital book platform from a former Apple designer. ...

News Corp's iPad publication could also be the first to implement an iTunes subscription feature that Apple has reportedly been working on. Publishers have pressed Apple for an iPad subscription agreement that would automatically send content to paying customers.

Competitors, however, haven't been idly watching The Daily's development process. The New York Times, in collaboration with Betaworks, is working on News.me, a social news app that will aggregate article links from Twitter streams and link sharing site bit.ly, TechCrunch reports. The approach is worlds apart from News Corp's, which focuses on producing custom content.

Also making headlines Tuesday was Push Pop Press, a startup from former Apple designer and Delicious Monster founder Michael Matas. The startup, which aims to create a "new breed" of interactive digital books, launched a teaser site Tuesday. ...

News Corp to Launch iPad Newspaper "The Daily" on February 2

Reuters: "News Corp will launch its long-awaited digital newspaper created for Apple Inc's iPad on February 2, two weeks after the two companies were widely expected to introduce the new product. ... "

Steve Jobs to Join Rupert Murdoch in Unveiling "The Daily" on Jan. 19

Interesting timing. This will be just one day after Apple reports earnings. AppleInsider: "Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs will appear onstage alongside media mogul and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch in San Francisco on Jan. 19 to unveil the new tablet-only newspaper The Daily for iPad."

News Corp's "Daily" iPad Newspaper Set For January Launch

Peter Kafka, MediaMemo, AllThingsD:

News Corp. plans to launch the publication the week of January 17, multiple sources tell me.

The caveat here is that launch plans have moved around a couple of times in the past few months; until recently, lots of folks expected to see this thing in December. But this latest date looks like a much safer bet. ...

Given that News Corp. has hired dozens of blabby journalists for the Daily, and interviewed many more, lots of other details about the app/service have leaked out already: It will come out daily, it will sell for 99 cents a week, it will use lots of video and it will have cool multimedia bells and whistles, including some kind of 3-D effect that lots of people are very excited about. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs may or may not participate in a launch event.

Most important for other media companies: The Daily is supposed to use a new “push” subscription feature from Apple, where iTunes automatically bills customers on a weekly or monthly basis, and a new edition shows up on customers’ iPads every morning.

If we do see that on the Daily next month, expect to see several other new iPad apps using the same feature shortly afterward.

That offering won’t resolve Apple’s dispute with conventional publishers, who want to be able to control their subscriptions–or at least get access to subscriber data–for iTunes app versions of their print products. But for new, digital-only products like the Daily, that data isn’t as crucial, and the ability to set up a recurring subscription would be a big step forward.

Conde Nast Digital Chief: Murdoch’s iPad Newspaper “Doesn’t Make any Sense”

VentureBeat: "News Corp mogul Rupert Murdoch is making a big bet on the iPad by hiring big-name (read: expensive) reporters for a new 'iPad newspaper' called The Daily. And other media organizations are skeptical. For example, publisher Conde Nast has made a big deal about iPad versions of its magazines like Wired and the New Yorker, but when Conde Nast Digital president Sarah Chubb was asked about The Daily today at the Ignition conference, she said, 'It doesn’t make any sense.' She noted that Conde Nast was able to revive Gourmet Magazine on the iPad, but that’s because Conde Nast only 'put a little bit of money into Gourmet Live, and we’ve gotten our money back.'" In other words, they did not have to finance original content, which Murdoch plans to do as part of The Daily business plan.

From News Corp. - "The Daily" - An iPad-Only Newspaper

David Carr @ NYTimes: "Rupert Murdoch, an old-timey newspaper romantic, has nonetheless deputized himself as the digital savior of paid content. Mr. Murdoch is currently leading the charge to build The Daily, an iPad-centered newspaper under construction in the News Corporation’s Manhattan offices that is scheduled to appear at the beginning of next year. With an investment of $30 million and a staff of around 100, The Daily will be the first of a kind — a 'newspaper' with rich media and photography built especially for the iPad." Note one more article referenced below.

What Should Murdoch's new iPad-Only Newspaper Look Like?

Erick Shonfeld @ TechCrunch: "News Corp is taking the iPad very seriously as a new way to distribute the news. The media giant is taking it so seriously that it is developing a new publication called the Daily which will only be available on the iPad (no print edition, no Website). News Corp is hiring 100 journalists for this iPad newspaper and is reportedly working with engineers on loan from Apple to make it shine. ... the fact that News Corp. is putting so many resources into this project raises a basic question that has yet to be answered satisfactorily: What should an iPad newspaper look like? Well, I am not sure it should look like a newspaper at all. The nice thing about starting from scratch is that the Daily won’t have to feel familiar in the same way that an iPad app for the Wall Street Journal or New York Times does. I fear that even the Daily will be too parochial, showing only news and content produced by its staff. But people no longer limit their news consumption to one publication, even within a single reading session."

News Corp.'s Murdoch Predicts Ad Changes for Digital Newspapers

Bloomberg: "'Digital news will look like cable channels with affiliated revenue,' [James, not Rupert] Murdoch said at a media conference in Monaco today. Titles will compete for ad revenue across this market and media buyers will 'make a big commitment' to purchase advertising, rather than making bookings for just a month at a time, he said. News Corp.’s U.K. titles the Times and Sunday Times erected paywalls in July, which reduced the number of readers and advertisers on the sites. Murdoch this month said these newspapers have more than 105,000 paying online customers, and today characterized paying readers as 'more engaged.' ..."

Times of London Gains Paying Web Site Readers

NYTimes.com: "The News Corporation said on Tuesday that it had gained 105,000 paying customers for the digital versions of The Times and The Sunday Times of London since it started charging for access to their Web sites this summer. The company said about half of those additions were regular, active subscribers to the newspapers’ Web sites, iPad application or Amazon Kindle edition. The rest were occasional purchasers. Another 100,000 readers have activated free digital accounts that are included in print subscriptions to the papers, the News Corporation said. The company’s initiative has been closely watched among media analysts and advertisers because The Times and Sunday Times are among the first prominent general-interest newspapers to start charging for their digital content. ... "

HarperCollins Thriller Sells More in eBooks Than in Hardcover

WSJ: "Laura Lippman’s thriller, I’d Know You Anywhere, went on sale Aug. 17, and in its first five days sold 4,739 e-books and 4,000 physical hardcovers, said News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers. 'This is the first book of ours of any consequence that has sold more e-books than hardcovers in the first week,' said Frank Albanese, a senior vice president at HarperCollins. 'What we’re seeing now is that if a book gets a good review, it gets a faster lift on the digital side than it does on the physical side because people who have e-readers can buy and read it immediately.'"

News Corp. Plans National Newspaper for Tablet Computers and Cellphones

Count on it being a rag. LaTimes.com: "It's the latest bid by a major media company to build readership using new devices such as the iPad. The new publication would offer short, snappy stories and operate under the auspices of the New York Post."

News Corp's Investments in Digital Reading

News Corp has purchased Skiff LLC, an e-reading tech firm formerly owned by Hearst, and has made a substantial investment in Journalism Online, an outfit which helps publishers charge readers for online news. Of course, both these moves further Rupert's ambition to monetize his content across every and any platform available. More from Leena Rao at TechCrunch.

Will the iPad Mean the End of Free Online News?

Well, will it? Rupert Murdoch has a thought or two. So do the gremlins at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.