Posted on 09/12/2009 2:33:34 PM PDT by abb
Money-losing Newsweek hopes to break even by 2011 and plans to as much as double its subscription rate over the next two years.
Ann McDaniel, managing director of Newsweek, which is owned by The Washington Post Co., said the magazine will aim for a "smaller base of very committed subscribers and get more money from each of them," while speaking at The Post Co.'s annual shareholders meeting at the company's D.C. headquarters.
Analysts suggested that the new Newsweek is modeling its editorial strategy on England's Economist, and now it appears to be doing the same thing with its business strategy. A subscription to the Economist costs $120 per year, whereas a subscription to Newsweek costs $37. That figure could rise to as much as $75 by 2011, McDaniel said. The magazine division had an operating loss of $25.4 million in the first six months of this year.
Because of declining advertising revenue and circulation, Newsweek and The Washington Post newspaper have been the two trouble spots for The Post Co., which also owns the growing Kaplan education company, Cable One cable company, six television stations and other publications, including the online magazine Slate.
Graham said he has been thrilled with the results at Kaplan, which provides more than half of all Post Co. revenue, but he warned that the company "cannot possibly continue to grow at the rate of the past 10 years." Kaplan revenue has surged from $258 million in 1999 to more than $2 billion today. Kaplan University, the company's online college, launched in 2001 with 34 students. Today, it has more than 56,000.
At The Post, publisher Katharine Weymouth said the ongoing losses are "material and unacceptable." The newspaper division lost $143 million through the first six months of this year.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ping. Saturday evening good news!!
I’d be expecting to see a lot of consolidations of failing papers. Instead it seems they are hell bent on dying alone. Herding cats?
Typical Liberal thinking - loosing money then why not raise the price ...
Here's an idea: put out an issue that does not have Barack Obama on the cover. |
The big metro model just won't work any more. Only super local stuff has a chance. And it has happened very suddenly and they're just too hidebound to change in time.
Why don't you host a fundraiser at your house? LOL!
Hopefully they’ll have a market being bought by their left-wing readers. Their sales strategy (conservative bashing) thus far has eliminated a good portion of Americans who expected more from them than the ugly smearing they got.
Maybe they should just shoot for one $50 million subscription.
There’s any amount of lefty swill available for free on the web. It’s hard to beat free.
They did. They have a white racist BABY on this week’s cover.
The only newspapers that will survive are the national newspapers (The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) and super local newspapers that can operate with less than 10 reporters.
“the magazine will aim for a “smaller base of very committed subscribers and get more money from each of them,”
Sorry, dolts. You don’t have the power to tax and steal money. Newsweek is going down, you simpering limp-wristed, poodle loving, America hating, purse swinging, clueless satori-seeking wimps.
Even the Buddha hates you, along with Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King and Rin-tin-tin.
Go hold an Olde English lemming faire and drive lances through your black hearts as you jump over the cliff.
I can honestly say that it has been decades since I bought even a single copy of Newsspeak, and I don’t intend to start anytime in my forseeable future.
This means Newsweek WILL disappear from all of the doctors’ waiting rooms. It will just be Time, Sports Illustrated and GGood Housekeeping (or equivalent).
The NY Times and the WSJ may not make it, at least as we have always known them. I’m thinking online only - just entirely too much overhead to run the printing presses, buy the paper, hand carry the papers all over hell and gone.
Just too expensive.
They would make more money (and get more subscriptions) just by running an article on the lies of the current administration. In other words, tell the truth.
Double the price of Newsweek. That should increase circulation.
Because of declining advertising revenue and circulation, Newsweek and The Washington Post newspaper have been the two trouble spots for The Post Co., which also owns theLooking forward, the 'print' biz will have to be self-sustaining:
- growing Kaplan education company,
- Cable One cable company,
- six television stations and
- other publications, including the online magazine Slate.
Because these guys don't want to carry around the dead weight when profits begin to plateu:Graham said he has been thrilled with the results at Kaplan, which provides more than half of all Post Co. revenue, but he warned that the company "cannot possibly continue to grow at the rate of the past 10 years."
Kaplan revenue has surged from:$258 million in 1999 to more than
$2 billion today.Kaplan University, the company's online college, launched in 2001 with 34 students. Today, it has more than 56,000.
Perhaps. But then again everyone rides the metro in NYC so there’s no better way to kill time than to read the newspaper.
Here’s an idea for Newsweek: get more liberal and shed more content. Its worked out well so far, right?
Maybe, eventually, they’ll find a core group of Moonbats willing to pay $100 a copy for that rag.
Looks like the Wa-Poo needs to rehire their marketing director and stage a large number of influence peddling parties -- real fast.
Most people would rather listen to their ipod or play games on their iphone. Maybe read a book, but a newspaper? Too much trouble in a subway train packed like a sardine can.
Losing money? Raise prices and make it up in volume ;-)
“the magazine will aim for a “smaller base of very committed subscribers and get more money from each of them,”
So they are going to compete with the Utne Reader and Mother Jones?
It looks like some readers here need a translation. They plan to sell high price subscriptions that YOU will pay for. So expect to see them in libraries, hospital waiting rooms, college campuses, classrooms, etc.
Funny how my father and I both are letting our subscriptions expire after the “We’re All Socialist Now” and “Is Your Baby Racist” cover stories and no way, no how would we go back at this point.
Oh Right, doubling subscription rates. That ought to bring on a whole bunch of new subscribers!
Kaplan. The leftist college.
I’m a Pheonix!
I will wait till they triple it then I will subscribe.Can’t fool me.
Here is a good idea.
Double the price. Cut page numbers. Outsource 99% of content to the NEA, the other NEA, SEIU, AFL-CIO, MoveOn, ACORN, DNC, Center for American Progress et al.
Should sell like gangbusters.
“...Newsweek is modeling its editorial strategy on England’s Economist...”
Oh puh-leeze! The Economist maybe a liberal mag, but it is head and shoulders and torso and legs better than any of our crap “news” weeklies here. And the “new” newsweek may be the worst of that lot.
Who would pay more to read that when they could just read the Ecomonist (you won’t find better whole world coverage than in the magazine no matter where you look) or The New Republic? Or for that matter The Utne Reader, if that’s still around. Totally left, but a pretty good mag.
Years ago when I communted by train for an hour I used to read EVERYTHING.
Take a book along and don't read the propaganda. Tell the person who is buying the magazines (receptionist, secretary, business owner) that you don't read propaganda like what is in their lobby). Silence is agreement with the status quo.
Good business sense there - charge more for stuff that nobody wants to buy. Yeah, that's the ticket !!!
And if that doesn't work - there are many small subscriber newsletters that change a few hundred in year - and have fewer pages than The Economist.
Using liberal logic - Newsweek should charge what they need - maybe $500 an issue. All that supply and demand stuff is for nutty conservatives ...
Hey, here’s an idea: charge lobbyists to have lunch with you editors!
I notice a new commitment to telling the truth isn’t part of their plan.
You know, you’d think they’d sit down and try to figure out why no one is buying their rag. I guess they figure that their loyal customers would love to pay over twice as much...I don’t think so.
It’s the same with government. If transportation isn’t bringing in the revenue they want, they raise fares. If they want people to conserve electricity or water and we do, revenue goes down so they increase rates ....
That was the exact thought I had while reading the headline.
Very funny pic. Just got call from Tribune this week—told them that i don’t subscribe due to their biased news coverage & election endorsements :(
I don’t know why they are so faint hearted. Why not charge ten times the current price?
I know! Hold big buck $alon$ sending out the following invite:
“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders.”
Maybe doing some stories about how publishing magazines that nobody reads is bad for the environment would increase subscriptions?
The magazine industry is a significant contributor to deforestation, dioxin contamination, air pollution (including greenhouse gases) and water pollution. Environmental damage caused by this industry will escalate unless publishers increase their use of recycled-content paper. In its study of the industry, the PAPER Project found:
* Magazine production contributes extensively to deforestation. U.S. magazine production uses more than 2.2 million tons of paper per year, and this number is increasing as some sectors of the industry experience tremendous growth. Magazines are printed almost exclusively on papers made from virgin fiber, resulting in more than 35 million trees being cut down each year. Virgin magazine paper production also uses enormous amounts of energy and water, and produces considerably more pollution than ecological paper alternatives.
* Less than 5% of magazine paper has any recycled content, and even these recycled content papers generally contain only 10-30% recycled fiber. Almost all magazine papers have been bleached with chlorine or chlorine compounds, which produce extremely toxic dioxin.
* The vast majority of magazines are discarded within one year, and few of these are recycled. Approximately 90% of all magazines are discarded within a year of publication, and only about 20% of these are recycled. In 1998, approximately 18,000 magazine titles were published, producing a total of about 12 billion magazines; over 9 billion of these were landfilled or incinerated.
* Overproduction compounds the industry’s impact. The magazine industry’s impact on the environment is compounded by systems that reward the industry for overproduction of publications. These inefficiencies are particularly apparent in magazines sold on newsstands, versus those sold by subscription. Inefficiencies begin with the publisher deliberately overproducing magazines to maximize advertising rates and are compounded by distributors over-ordering to ensure that no magazine rack is ever empty. Publishers rarely receive the kind of timely and accurate retail sales information needed to improve efficiency, and they have little economic incentive to reduce print runs, as the marginal cost of each magazine is relatively low (about 91 cents on average).
* Almost 3 billion magazines on newsstands are never read. About 4.7 billion magazines are delivered to newsstands each year. As a result of the above wasteful practices, about 2.9 billion of these are never read - enough magazines, placed end to end, to circle the Earth 20 times.
And it will happen as newspapers in the USA abandon the expensive-to-produce broadsheet format in favor of smaller formats such as tabloid and Berliner.
Newsweek is obviously adopting a form of the “blivet” strategery..hoping to attract a sufficient number of committed idiots willing and happy to pay for “ten pounds of s**t in a five pound bag..”
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Isn't this the second time they've announced this change at Newsweek?