News Corp And Apple Unveil The Daily

The publication's launch came during a press event at New York's Guggenheim Museum. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and Apple Vice President of Internet Services Eddy Cue were joined by The Daily's Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo.

The Daily, which copies the look and feel of a newspaper or magazine, is aimed at embracing the multimedia capabilities of Apple's iPad. Rupert Murdoch said that The Daily offers unthinkable innovations to the world of publishing.

New times demand new journalism, Murdoch said. The devices that modern engineering has put in our hands demand a new service, edited and designed specifically for them.

Murdoch said his intention was to make The Daily an indispensible outlet for not only news but entertainment as well. We believe The Daily will be the model for how stories are told and consumed, he said.

Murdoch may want The Daily to be indispensible, but as it is it might not translate to the web. We didn't want to make any compromises. The web forces you to make compromises, said News Corp.'s Digital Media Officer Jon Miller.

Obviously not everything you can do on the iPad can be replicated on the web, Angelo said. Features based on the iPads touch screen functionality, he said, don't make much sense on the web. Simpler, text-based pages, however, will be available online.

Our ambitions are very big, but our costs are very low. So if you talk about success financially, it's a really low figure, Murdoch said. He offered a simple metric for the publication's success: When we are selling millions.

Murdoch revealed that the company has spent $30 million so far on The Daily, and that the publication would cost less than half a million dollars a week to run. We are very confident of the finances. He also put to rest any speculation that the The Daily would remain exclusive to the iPad. As other tablets get established we will develop the tech to be on them, he said. We expect to be on all the major tablets.

News Corp. offers two subscriptions for The Daily. While yearly subscriptions are offered for $39.99, weekly subscriptions are 99 cents and News Corp. is offering The Daily free for the first two weeks. Murdoch said he expects that eventually 50 percent of the revenue will come from advertising and the other half from subscriptions.