PaidContent reports that in its Q3 earnings call, News Corp. reported it lost $10 million on The Daily in its first quarter of operation. The paper has been downloaded 800,000 times since its launch. Of course, the monetary figures don’t really tell the whole story; a News Corp. spokesman told PaidContent that the “loss” had to do with startup costs, since the paper only recently started charging.

News Corp. president Chase Carey declined to disclose how many free subscribers had made the jump to paid, saying that it was too early to disclose that kind of information.

“It’s really early days,” Carey said. “It’s only a month-plus that it’s been pay-based. It’s actually one of the most downloaded news apps out there. It’s a work-in-progress, we’re proving the technology, refining the content – the tablet market is still in its infancy.”

So, the financial loss doesn’t really sound a death knell for the e-paper yet—it needs some all-paid quarters to provide a valid performance metric.

1 COMMENT

  1. “spokesman told PaidContent that the “loss” had to do with startup costs, since the paper only recently started charging.”

    Startup costs can be capitalised and spread over the next five years. That doesn’t explain the scale of the loss. Looks like a very expensive operation needing a very high turnover to break even and relying on achieving that in the next 3 years.

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