News Corp. kills The Daily digital news

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NEW YORK, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Citing a failure to attract readers, News Corp. has announced it is folding The Daily, the tablet-focused digital publication it premiered in February 2011.

Initially available only on Apple's iPad, The Daily later expanded to other tablets, such as Amazon's Kindle Fire and devices running on Google's Android, but failed to garner enough tablet subscribers -- at 99 cents per week on the iPad and $1.99 to $3.99 a month on other tablets -- to survive.

The Daily will publish its last issue on Dec. 15, CNN reported Monday.

News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch, while calling The Daily "a bold experiment in digital publishing," admitted the online newspaper didn't take off with readers.

News Corp. poured $30 million into the launch of The Daily and committed about 100 staffers to it, saying it was willing to spend $26 million a year to keep it running.

"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," Murdoch said.