News Corp. Launches Digital Daily

The Daily, a general news publication designed solely for the iPad and other tablets, will cost 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. It will feature news, opinion, sports and lifestyle content, including audio, 360-degree photos and video.

The project is being closely watched throughout a media industry that has been battered by declines in print advertising and is searching for new ways to make money delivering content on digital devices.

Some media companies view the iPad and other emerging tablet devices as critical to correcting what they view as one of their biggest mistakes: offering free access to all their material online.

"We can and we must make the business of newsgathering and editing viable again," said Mr. Murdoch at a launch event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. "We believe The Daily will be the model for how stories will be told and consumed."

The Daily will be distributed using a new billing-and-delivery system from Apple that allows customers to sign up for a subscription to a periodical and have the publication delivered to their iPad each time a new issue is published.

The system automatically charges the customer's credit card every week or year so readers don't have to pay each time they want to access a new issue, currently the norm for periodical sales in iTunes. The first two weeks will be free, courtesy of Verizon Communications.