Andrew Sullivan on Track for 'Daily Beast' Split

It's one week before the February 4 launch of AndrewSullivan.com, and Sullivan, the site's creator, says that he's already raked in $480,000 in subscriptions. Plus, as he explains to Washingtonian, half the subscribers "gave more money than we asked for." As he'd explained in his initial missive: "We felt more and more that getting readers to pay a small amount for content was the only truly solid future for online journalism. We also felt we almost had a duty to try and see if we could help break some new ground."

As Sullivan (No. 28 on Out's 2012 Power List) explained in that post about his decision to leave Daily Beast: "I did it on my own for nothing but two pledge drives for six years. Then I tried partnering with bigger media institutions for the following six -- Time, the Atlantic, and the Daily Beast. The Beast in particular gave us the resources and support to take the Dish to a new level of richness, breadth and depth: adding one more staffer and two paid interns, helping us with video, giving us a supportive space to breathe and grow, as we have."

Let's see how it goes after next week's launch.