Posted on 06/09/2008 5:19:30 PM PDT by abb
Newsweekly will begin publishing every other week
By Diego Vasquez Jun 9, 2008
Long rumored, it's now a fact. Mort Zuckerman's U.S. News + World Report is formally dropping out of the newsweekly race, leaving the field to Time, Newsweek, The Week and The Economist.
Next year, U.S. News will go biweekly, in a shift of focus away from news and the print title to its rankings, such as of colleges and hospitals, and toward its online properties, with their emphasis on data.
Calls to publisher Bill Holiber were not returned. A spokesperson for the magazine could not say when in 2009 the frequency change is set to occur.
As much as anything the move represents Zuckerman's desire to stem the losses of the print title, which has slipped to a distant third behind Time and Newsweek in ad sales in what's become an increasingly tough market for newsweeklies in recent years with the rise of the internet.
The question is just how much Zuckerman will invest in this repositioning of U.S. News. Or is it just another retrenchment in a series of retrenchments?
Over recent years, the magazine has suffered through a series of budget cuts on the print side, but Zuckerman has been far less willing to invest in the online side than either Time or Newsweek. And as a result the site's growth has not kept up with that of either Time or Newsweek.
In terms of ad pages, the print edition of U.S. News saw a decline of 37.5 percent over the first three months of 2008, according to Publishers Information Bureau.
But it was a particularly rough time for all magazines and newsweeklies in particular as the effects of the ad slowdown took deeper hold. Time was down 18 percent and Newsweek 14 percent, with the category as a whole down 14 percent.
In 2007, according to PIB, the newsweekly category was down just 2 percent. U.S. News was off nearly 5 percent, while Time and Newsweek were down close to 7 percent.
The only gainers were The Week and The Economist, up 5 percent and more than 8 percent, respectively.
U.S. News's move to a biweekly frequency has been in the works for some time.
Just a few years back, it published just two double issues per year, for a total of 50. That figure crept up to a half-dozen during the last ad recession earlier in the decade. This year the magazine is set to run 16 double issues, for a total of just 36 issues for the year.
ping
They’ll have fewer opportunities to slander the troops. Pardon me while I LMAO!
Wasn’t U.S. News a news magazine that used to be published? I haven’t read one in years.
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=127620
U.S. News Loses Weekly War as Sector’s Ad Pages Plummet
Biweekly Will Focus on Franchise Rankings, Cede Space to Time, Newsweek
By Nat Ives
Published: June 09, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — U.S. News & World Report, the longtime No. 3 weekly news magazine, is dropping to a biweekly frequency starting next year, effectively ceding its troubled category to larger rivals Time and Newsweek.
All three traditional newsweeklies have already taken steps such as cutting paid-circulation guarantees as competition has increased and the news cycle has gone into hyperdrive. U.S. News has already trimmed its frequency to 36 issues this year from 46 last year. But the move to publish issues only every other week — with additional specials on occasion — provides the strongest signal yet that the ground has permanently shifted under the old newsweeklies.
“’News’ and ‘week’ becomes an oxymoron,” was how Brian Kelly, editor of U.S. News, described the effect of always-on media last week.
“It’s a very smart, strategic move,” said Brenda White, senior VP-director of publishing activation at Starcom Worldwide. “When you think about it, what their brand stands for is the rankings: the 100 best hospitals. There is a franchise there, and they capitalized on it.”
“They’re really embracing change,” Ms. White added, “vs. fighting or just thinking about it.” It’s probably helped focus everyone’s mind that ad page sales are suffering this year under the added weight of a recession. Ad pages so far have fallen 23.7% at Newsweek, 27.2% at Time and 32.7% at U.S. News, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
Around in five years?
At a panel last week, media critic and provocateur Michael Wolff suggested the newsweeklies’ challenges would only get worse. “If Newsweek is around in five years, I’ll buy you dinner,” he said. (Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham sees a different future: “I like steak,” he told Ad Age later, “and look forward to dinner.”)
But there’s no getting around the fact that demand for the print versions is dwindling. Time reported average paid circulation of nearly 3.4 million for the second half of last year, down 17.6% as it drastically cut its guaranteed circulation; newsstand sales declined 19.4%. Newsweek’s average was flat at 3.1 million, including a 16.3% decline on newsstands; its rate-base reduction did not take effect until January. U.S. News also reported flat circulation, at just over 2 million, as newsstand slipped 7.9%; it, too, cut its rate base in 2008.
The newsweeklies are investing heavily in their websites, where they expect to find future audience growth. The new idea at U.S. News is to let the web do what it does best — provide instant news updates and vast stores of reference material — so the print edition can publish less often. “Because we’re able to provide our audience with much more current information on the web, it frees us up to do some better storytelling in print,” Mr. Kelly said.
Websites for all three are, in fact, turning in growth, but Time and Newsweek are faring much better, in part because of their collaborations with other players including CNN and MSNBC. Time’s site averaged 4.5 million monthly unique visitors last year, up 34% from the year before, according to Nielsen Online. Newsweek’s 6.5 million average unique visitors represented a 38% gain. U.S. News averaged 1.3 million unique visitors for a gain of 6.5%.
Redesign in store
U.S. News executives are turning away from the old category battles. “We’re definitely less concerned about the broader issues for the newsweekly category,” said President William D. Holiber. “We’re more concerned about focusing in on how we can connect our users and readers with our advertisers. The direction that we’re taking puts us in a position to do that.”
U.S. News is also revealing a redesign next month which will play to print’s strengths, such as the capacity to engage readers with that better storytelling Mr. Kelly mentioned earlier. It is refocusing its editorial efforts on providing “what it means to me” content in health, education, personal finance, public affairs and opinion. Its online offerings will include expanded e-mail newsletters, themselves a relatively recent arrival, and a new opinion area later this month.
The brand is also creating a U.S. News Media Group to house and market its print edition, the companion site, its popular rankings of colleges and other institutions, the Rankings and Reviews site introduced last year, and newsstand specials such as “Secrets of the Civil War.”
Wow. This could be the tip of the iceberg.
I don't know. It is not as leftist and not as tabloidish as Newsweek and Time. I hate picking up a "news" magazine only to find that half of its pages are dedicated to Hollywood gossip, sports and "lifestyle" articles.
Coming up next....LESS TIME, NEWSMONTH, ....
We can hope.
My grandmother used to read USNWR at the doctor's office, but she's been dead since 1968.
Her doctor died in 1990.
They had to put a news release about it on the internet so anyone would even notice...
Michael Barone works primarily for US News. In the 60’s, under David Lawrence, it was a solid, serious news-packed magazine, generally conservative and a great counterweight to Time and Newsweek. It ran no photos on the cover, just the headlines of the articles inside. In junior high school, I could hardly wait for Tuesday when it would arrive.
USN&WR was the first news publication I subscribed to nearly 50 years ago. Politically, it is not recognizable today. As far as I’m concerned, it died years ago.
I think I read that same issue at my doctor's office last week...
I used to read it in the early seventies. It was fairly moderate then. Over the last twenty five years, it has become indistinguishable from the rest of the left wing junk.
Even Dentist offices stopped
"They had to put a news release about it on the internet so anyone would even notice... "
LOL
If they went bi-annual, it would be too often.
For quite a while it was a real alternative to Time and Newsweak, but then it went over to the dark side.
Maybe Newsweek will be next, and they’ll have to change the name to Newsbiweek. In fact, I think I’ll register a publication to be called NewsGLBTweak, and they’ll have to pay me before they can use the new name.
I can’t remember when they did it, but when I couldn’t find John Leo’s column in USN&WR, I let my subscription run out. Some time after Bush was elected, the magazine took a hard turn left.
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