5 million / per year should (conservatively) pay for a staff of ~50. 30 in the newsroom, 10 in software/design, 5 sales, 5 mgmt).
if they couldn't make a 100,000 iPad publication work for this kind of budget, they're bloated & should go out of business.
The failure of The Daily is not a statement on Apple's 30 % cut, iPad vs web publishing. It's a damning commentary on yesteryear's Journalism still not getting it.
That isn't a conservative estimate. I worked for a news organization with a staff of about 30. Our budget was around $4.5 million, and we were pretty light on the (expensive) software side. That's also not accounting for profit, which is typically why people do these things.
Interesting, would you mind breaking down the costs a bit more (e.g., fixed costs, cost per journalist, how many journalists vs support staff like IT personnel)?
This may not be a comparable example, but the TexasTribune is a digital only publication that focuses on Texas news and political coverage. They operate on donations and through revenue from content partnerships. According to their about page[1] they will break even on $4.5 million this year.
Looks like the model can make sense. You have to be smart about the audience and focus on quality, value-add content.
if they couldn't make a 100,000 iPad publication work for this kind of budget, they're bloated & should go out of business.
The failure of The Daily is not a statement on Apple's 30 % cut, iPad vs web publishing. It's a damning commentary on yesteryear's Journalism still not getting it.