News: The Daily to Shut Down December 15

Although it’s not surprising, it is a bit of a shame—News Corporation’s The Daily will be shutting down on December 15. It started almost two years ago, as an iPad-only newspaper and eventually jumped to Android and the iPhone. Throughout that time, it faced numerous hurdles, including low readership, criticism of content, and a corporate parent in the midst of restructuring.

Despite critics of News Corporation (who also owns Fox News and The New York Post), The Daily operated somewhat independently and seemed to skew more to the middle politically, with a bit of a focus around entertainment and small news stories. Still, it was the first of its kind, pushed the medium forward a bit, and wasn’t like most electronic magazines that were glorified PDF rehashings of content.

The first version was plagued with sluggish navigation, slow load times, and general unusability on the original iPad. After a few updates, and subsequent iPads, The Daily became a quite enjoyably experience. Still, it kept hemorrhaging readers, and couldn’t be sustainable long-term.

From the News Corporation press release:

News Corporation also announced that effective immediately, Jesse Angelo, the founding Editor-in-Chief of The Daily and long-time Executive Editor of The New York Post, will assume the role of Publisher of The New York Post. As part of a digital restructuring initiative, the company will cease standalone publication of The Daily iPad app on December 15, 2012, though the brand will live on in other channels. Technology and other assets from The Daily, including some staff, will be folded into The Post.

Mr. 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. Under the editorial leadership of Editor-in-Chief Col Allan and the business and digital leadership of Jesse, I know The New York Post will continue to grow and become stronger on the web, on mobile, and not least, the paper itself. I want to thank all of the journalists, digital and business professionals for the hard work they put into The Daily.”

No word on refunds for those who paid the $40 for the yearly subscription.