Influential weekly news magazine said on Thursday (10/18/2012), announced it will publish final print edition on Dec. 31. After that, Newsweek helpless again under pressure affecting the print media industry in general and in particular the weekly magazine.
By doing so, Newsweek became the latest victim of the rapidly changing world, where readers are now getting more information from the website, tablets, and smartphones. It also marks a situation where advertisers seek cheaper alternatives and it is online.
Newsweek, which was founded in 1933, has built a respectable place in the American media landscape. The magazine competed fiercely with Time magazine, and published every week to bring headlines to several million readers. In the pre-Internet era, before a constant stream of real-time information is available, so the reader waiting for the presence of the two magazines. Readers want to know what the headlines will be presented two magazines, whether they will display the same topic. However, it used to be.
In an announcement posted on the website The Daily Beast, which merged with Newsweek two years ago, Newsweek said its online publication will be called the Newsweek Global. The digital version is "going to be a single issue in the world that target highly mobile readers who are curious about the world events". The digital version was not gatis, who would have to pay a subscription. Some of the Newsweek article will appear in The Daily Beast, which will continue as a free website.
The announcement was made editor in chief of Newsweek, Tina Brown, and CEO of The Newsweek Daily Beast Co., Baba Shetty. Both are in a joint statement saying, "In our judgment, we have reached a critical point where we can most efficiently and effectively reach our readers in an all-digital format."
Newsweek trying to take advantage of the rapid growth in the use of tablets and e-readers. "The use of the fast growing tablet among our readers," the statement said. Therefore, Newsweek would like to use this opportunity to switch to a digital format. "This decision is not related to the quality of the brand or journalism, which is strong for this. This is simply about the economic challenges of print and distribution," the statement added. "We are making the transition to Newsweek, we do not say good-bye," they wrote.
Brown said the decision was inevitable. "You can not change an era of innovation that gave a huge impact," he said as quoted by the New York Times. "No one can reverse that trend. You can not restore what is an inevitable trend."
Newsweek's decision was not surprising. Barry Diller, head of the company that owns Newsweek, announced in July that it was analyzing media future as a weekly print magazine. Diller said at the time that produces a weekly news magazine in print at this time is not easy.
Print edition of Newsweek actually had long lost its relevance as readers flocked to switch to news sources, digital sources.
Business Newsweek also distraught over the years. Mounting losses have made The Washington Post Co. sold Newsweek in 2010 valued at U.S. $ 1 to businessman Sidney Harman stereo. Harman died in 2011. However, before he died, he made Newsweek into a joint venture with international IAC / InterActiveCorp 's The Daily Beast in an attempt to cut losses magazine and expand its online readers.
Newsweek has so far been able to develop a number of online readers, in part due to the popularity of devices like the iPad from Apple Inc. and e-readers from Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc.. The Daily Beast gets over 15 million unique visitors per month, up 70 percent from a year ago. Much of the growth was generated Newsweek, they said.
Industrywide, magazine ad pages U.S., fell 8.8 percent in the first half of 2012, according to the Publisher's Information Bureau. Newsweek fared better, its ad pages rose 7.6 percent during the period. However, the U.S. Newsweek circulation has declined over the years, continue to fall from its peak around 3 million copies to about 1.5 million today.
Newsweek is not the first to stop the print version. U.S. News & World Report has suspended its weekly print edition a few years ago and is now focused on its website and a number of special edition print, as a guide for the best graduate schools. SmartMoney media announced in June that it would turn into a digital format. Dow Jones & Co., a unit of News Corp, said at the time that 25 positions at SmartMoney will be deleted.
The transition from print to a digital version of it will be followed by a step reduction in the staff of Newsweek. In a meeting with his staff on Thursday morning, Tina Brown tearfully said that he did not know how many people will be laid off. To be sure, the number of staff and the editorial operations of Newsweek in the United States and abroad will be downsized.
