News Corp to close iPad title The Daily

News Corporation is to close iPad newspaper The Daily.

Rupert Murdoch today described the creation of the title, which launched less than two years ago, as a "bold experiment" but admitted News Corp "could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term".

The Daily, designed as a standalone publication for iPad, with content also available on iPhone, Android tablet and Kindle Fire, will cease publication on 15 December.

The brand will live on "in other channels", according to a statement.

The Daily was launched for US iPads in February 2011. Seven months later Bloomberg revealed the iPad newspaper was averaging 120,000 readers a week, which Murdoch has said would need 500,000 to break even.

In July the New York Observer and the New York Times reported the title had attracted just 100,000 subscribers and was losing $30 million a year.

In an effort to provide a taster of content on The Daily, the team launched a Tumblr blog to act as an entry point.

News Corp made today's announcement in a press release detailing its proposed split of News Corporation into two companies: News Corporation and Fox Group.

The statement says that Jesse Angelo, the founding editor-in-chief of The Daily and long-time executive editor of The New York Post, will move to the role of publisher of The New York Post.

"Technology and other assets from The Daily, including some staff, will be folded into The Post."

In the press release, Murdoch said: "From its launch, The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation.

"Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term.

"Therefore we will take the very best of what we have learned at The Daily and apply it to all our properties."

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