On Closer Inspection, The Daily Isn’t Doing So Badly
As PadGadget reported last week, the Daily reported 120,000 unique readers, but that number did not separate paid subscribers and two-week trial users. According to Adage, Publisher Greg Clayman released a more detailed report on subscribers to the iPad-only news app. The numbers don’t look good, but it is not the untimely end of Rupert Murdoch’s newest experiment.
Of the 120,000 unique Daily users, 80,000 are paid subscribers. According to Clayman about 15 percent of people who sign up for the trial period will ultimately end up subscribing.
According to Localytics, the Daily’s readers spend an average of 20 to 30 minutes and view approximately 40 pages every day in the app. Clayman seems to believe that this is proof that people are “responding well” to the experiment.
In comparison to major newspapers across the U.S., the tablet app is not doing so badly. The New Yorker has 26,880 iPad subscribers, and a total of 189,154 paying users across all platforms and devices.
Mike Vorhaus of consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates says that the app has a lot of potential. “It’s still very early in the process, and it’s still only an iPad application,” said Vorhaus. “I think they could get to 300,000 to 350,000 on just one device.” Clayman stated that the company is working on an Android app that will be available across a wide variety of tablet devices, including the upcoming Kindle Fire.
Advertisers are not as excited to be a part of the Daily as they were when the app first launched. Andrea Redniss, managing director at Digital Media Storm, and her marketers are questioning whether the app is working to benefit their business. Without enough documentation to prove the app is working, it is hard to sell advertisers on a renewal contract.
Subscribers appear to prefer the yearly cost of $39.99 as opposed to a $0.99 weekly subscription. This helps the company because they are less likely to suffer week-to-week losses.
As the Daily approaches its one-year anniversary, it is still unclear as to whether the news app will ever turn a profit, but it seems obvious that its parent-company doesn’t plan on jumping ship anytime soon.