After all digital 2013, Newsweek to return to print in 2014

US current affairs magazine Newsweek, which had ceased publication last year to focus on its website, plans to bring back its print edition early next year.

The magazine expects to begin a 64-page weekly edition in January or February, Newsweek’s editor-in-chief Jim Impoco said in an interview to the New York Times.

He said the newly published Newsweek would depend more on subscribers than advertisers to pay its bills, with readers paying more than in the past.

“It’s going to be a more subscription-based model, closer to what The Economist is compared to what Time magazine is,” Impoco said.

“We see it as a premium product, a boutique product.”

Newsweek’s return to print is being seen as a positive sign for a magazine that had struggled to survive as more readers switched to online versions of newspapers and magazines to get their news.

The magazine had 3.3 million readers at its height in 1991.

In 2010, Newsweek’s owner, The Washington Post, sold it to the billionaire investor Sidney Harman for a dollar.

Harman, who also assumed  $40 million in liabilities, then merged it with website The Daily Beast.

After being in the print media for 80 years, the iconic US weekly magazine had announced in October last year that it was adopting an all-digital format from 2013 as it sought to adjust its business model and focused on expanding its online readership through tablets and e-books.

The venerable US publication, founded in 1933, had said its last print edition would be the 31 December issue before it transitioned into an all-digital format in early 2013.

The all-digital publication was named ‘Newsweek Global’ and is a single, worldwide edition targeted for a “highly mobile, opinion-leading audience”.

The online content was accessible through paid subscription and was available through e-readers for both tablet and the web, with select content available on The Daily Beast website.

Print publications in the US have been struggling to cope with loss in advertising revenue and declining circulation as readers migrate to digital platforms of tablets and e-books to get their news content, which is often free and has been modified to suit the requirements of readers on the go.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, Newsweek had a total paid circulation of 3,158,480 in 2001 but this had fallen by half to 1,527,157 in June last year.

PTI