CNBC reports that News Corp, the Rupert Murdoch-led media conglomerate behind such outlets as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and The New York Post, is considering launching a new news unit dedicated to content for tablet devices such as the iPad.
Sources close to the company tell me that the company is considering creating a new purely digital news play that would be designed for the app world and would be available through subscription on devices like the iPad.
This new digital news venture would incorporate text, photo and video, tailored for the iTunes app format .... neither a newspaper nor a news website -- it would not be based on any of News Corp's existing papers.
According to the report, News Corp could announce the new initiative within a month should it decided to officially move forward with it.
While News Corp has already established a precedent for subscription-based iPad content through its Web-administered offerings for The Wall Street Journal, other content providers seeking to deploy subscription-based content, such as Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated magazine, have been butting heads with Apple, possibly over either revenue sharing or subscriber information sharing.
Fortune is another one of Time Inc.'s brands that has not been able to reach a deal with Apple for subscription pricing, as the magazine's iPad application rolled out today using a model similar to that employed by other content providers. The free download comes with a demo issue, but future issues will have to be purchased individually through the application at $4.99 per issue.
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