'Sporting News Today' Publisher: New Digital Daily Has 75,000 Subs, Aims For 200,000 Before Ad Push

Sporting News Todaydebuted Wednesday with about 35,000 advance subscribers; less than a week later, publisher Ed Baker told paidContent, the number of people getting free delivery of the digital sports daily has more than doubled to 75,000. But it's still not enough to achieve the critical mass Baker wants?at least 200,000?before going wide with ad sales. It's all a matter of phases, he explains, starting with a launch of a beta product that's "more than a beta test because it's in consumers hands" but is still being created.

More about the launch and a first look after the jump:

Delivered daily at 7 a.m. eastern, SN Today is the first step in a reinvention of a title continuously published for 120 years; perhaps the ultimate test of how to take part in the transition to online beyond a website. The second prong of the dramatic shift by Sporting News, acquired in 2006 by American City Business Journals, Inc., involves moving from a weekly sports magazine to a revamped bi-weekly with larger pages, better paper, and less emphasis on news.The new daily doesn't replace the company's sportingsnews.com; instead, it's pitched as additive. Get the morning's full news through the daily; get breaking news through the website. The daily has links to blogs, stories and other aspects of the site for use when you're reading online. Reading offline? You can go back to a list of links per page once you're online again.

For now, despite the constant description of the "first digital newspaper in the country,"Sporting News Todaydoesn't look much different from the electronic editions produced by print publications for paid subscription. But Baker says that's about to change with the addition of rich media. The daily will include audio and video, including pre-roll ads.

Advertising: Baker: "We're not even selling advertising yet." The ads in the first editions are "good customers of ours who wanted in from the beginning." He wants 200,000 registered users "when we go to market. We want to be sure everything is packaged and bundled. That's a goal we want to get to as fast as we can." He expects to hit that phase in a couple of months. Packages will be offered across the daily, site and magazine but each will be available individually as well. The daily will mix newspaper positions with online tech. "It's not going to be a traditional .com." In addition to rich media, think dominant positions, sponsor pages.

First look: Could have sworn I signed up in advance for the new Sporting News Today but it turns out I was part of the next wave. I was able to check out the first editions by clicking on archive links. That's because, technically, the issue isn't delivered?subscribers get a link via email. The online publication, produced through Texterity, mixes print sensibilities and online capabilities in a package that will feel familiar to anyone who's read other recent digital newspapers or magazines. It can be downloaded to PCs or Macs and read full screen.

-- The download was fairly simple: click on the link and it loads fast. Viewing can be set to fit the screen width or height. The appearance can be blurry on my laptop but when I happened to test it on a new 46-inch Samsung flat screen, it was clear?and readable from a distance. The two-page Speed Channel ad had a better impact than some video ads. Not the way I plan to read it but still impressive.

-- In addition to a searchable archive, each issue is archived intact. Each issue also can be saved and printed as a pdf.

-- TSN promises not to have fewer than 24 pages an issue; the first edition had 33. Sunday's had 28. It may be missing the printing presses but it requires a combo of print-like and web-like production.

Content: It is comprehensive, as promised, with all the major sports news and stats in a single package as easy to read as a newspaper plus longer articles. Unfortunately, some events get the same terse coverage they might get in the much-smaller sports section of a newspaper. The Tour de France on Friday got three small graphs that I literally had to do a search to find.Sporting News Todaymay cover more than the majors, but make no doubt?that's still the core content and target audience.

-- I was a little surprised to find that the front-page scores aren't linked to box scores or stories on the inside.

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