[PJ-Comix]

I wonder if Jon Meacham will invite your humble correspondent the the Newsweek block party when they celebrate their circulation plunging in half. Of course, the party next year will be even bigger if Newsweek finds out that their circulation declined by much more than that.

When they fold, I expect Jon Meacham to be so jubilant that he will wear a lampshade hat and jubilantly toast the failure with expensive champagne.

[theDentist]

Everything upside down to favor this Administration.

"We're cutting circulation! Woo Hoo!"
"We're closing 1/3rd of our Dealerships! Way to Go!!"
"The IRS is hiring more auditors in advance of 2010!! Lucky you!!!"
"The Gov't is going to prevent management from getting bonuses that they contractually earned. Ha ha ha!"
"They're even going to decide how much a salary can be!"
"Obama is looking into taking away for 401K savings for a Gov't sponsored retirement program!"
"Under new Health Plans, the elderly who aren't working and contributing to society won't get the medicines that workers should have, so there!!"

Unbelievable.

[KarlInOhio]

If they double the subscription price and get half the subscribers they will break even - if you aren't counting the advertising. If the per copy advertising rate stays the same they will not come close to breaking even.

[capydick]

"The staff doesn't understand it."

OH! Only if the staff and rest of us were as smart as Mr. Meachem, only then would we be able to see the greatness of his thinking.

I've always found him to be arrogant and above it all - this statement verifies my opinion.

[Buddygirl]

I tell you, this is so counter to what was taught to me in school... but it is like what someone said (the Bible?)...yes shall mean no, evil is good, good is evil, when one should be sad, he is jubliant over evil, etc.

The world has gone mad; it doesn’t make sense anymore...

[Hacklehead]

Spinal Tap meets Newsweek. In the movie when asked about why the band has been losing fans and playing in smaller and smaller arenas, the manager replies that they are appealing to a more selective audience.

[cpdiii]

Jon Meacham admits it is hard to explain, even to his own people, why chopping Newsweek's circulation in half is a good thing. "It's hugely counter intuitive," the magazine's editor says. "The staff doesn't understand it."

I do not know what this boy is smoking, but I do know it is high quality stuff.

Note to Newsweek staff, there are two accent marks in in the word re'sume' and the companies that "might" hire you do not know what the word "Vitae" means.

[cbkaty]

I guess I understand...

1/2 a beer, 1/2 a plate of nachos, 1/2 a watermelon, makes sense to me..../s

[bigbob]

Hastening the inevitable...Meacham is a loon.

[Arrowhead1952]

Ah’m ah gessin them there lies ain’t sellin so good.....

[Tribune7]

As newspapers lost circ in the 90s their profitability went way up. Why? It cost a lot, lot less to print and distribute 450,000 papers a day than 550,000, and if advertising holds steady and rates don't drop (or cough, cough are increased) one has a seriously nice business plan.

For those who don't know, subscription fees and newsstands generally don't cover the cost of newsprint & delivery.

[Lancey Howard]

Newsweak loses a huge piece of its subscription base every time a barber shop or orthodontist cancels.

[madinmadtown]

In some ways this self-destructive behavior on the part of the old media is so outrageous that one has to wonder if it isn't orchestrated. As Newspeak raises its cover price to a dollar more than Time, and as the article points out was not bought at the lower price, it is suicide....an intentional death so that there will be only one national newsmagazine left. US News is now essentially an on-line only entity. Time will be the only national news magazine. A totalitarian regime would be proud of that accomplishment.
We conservatives are happy to see the death of our foes in the liberal news, but there is another side to this and it is that we are left with a single news model such as Pravda. “Truth” will be very Orwellian, not that it hasn't already occurred in the old main stream news. The fact that there has not been real competition between Newsweek and Time for at least a decade is something that should have alarmed us a long time ago. The free market model that used to exist between those two rival magazines kept them vital. While in the last twenty years, conservatives have left their active readership, they have continued to support them marginally by taking advantage of the professional subscriptions and leaving them as afterthoughts in waiting rooms and lobbies, partly out of tradition (conservatives will do that}.
My larger point is that we are rapidly seeing an even smaller number of options available for news. Obama’s destruction of the automobile industry in America will be devastating on smalltown newspapers which have relied heavily on car dealerships for revenue. Small towns are looking at the closure of car dealerships as a crisis because in some places the taxes on the sale of autos has been the main source of funding for their towns.
The Internet has given us a great compilation of the news, but many of the sites are not news gathering resources. They are sites where news is compiled, not reported. There is a difference. And while Newspeak has itself not been a source of news for at least a decade, its demise should give us some reason for pause.

[smokingfrog]

Pay no attention to the icebergs.

[Brookhaven]

His plan (when you read the actual article) has some logic behind it, but it is based upon a false premise.

Basicly, he wants to be a premium news magazine. He plans on making money on subscriptions as well as advertising.

Instead of selling 3 million mag at $3 (9 mill a month), he’ll sell 1.5 million at $5 (7.5 mill a month). Since his printing costs will be halfed, he’ll probably net more profit out of the 7.5 mill than the 9 mill.)

He probably figures he can maintain his advertising rates by saying his new readers have more upscale and have more disposable income (because they are willing to spend more on a premium news magazine.)

What he forgets about is competition. What is going to differentiate Newsweek from its competition to the point that customers are willing to shell out more money for it?

This reminds me of the Cable ad where they guy (with the inferior product) says “we’ll target people with more disposable income and let them dispose of their income to us.”

[DugwayDuke]

I remember back in ‘94 when I used to subscribe to Time. In one issue they stated they would no longer just be reporting the news but would be ‘interpreting’ the news as well. I cancelled my subscription that night.

That was about the time I cancelled my subscription to “Money” as well. They had an article ‘interpreting’ what HillaryCare would mean to me. Not one mention about reduced services or increased taxes, just page after page of talk about how great it would be for the government to pay for free health care for everyone.

These news magazines, the rest of the media, and their reporters have been captured by big government. All they do is recycle government press releases. Not a smidgen of honest reporting and investigation. Even their ‘investigations’ of Republicans are written by the DNC.

[a fool in paradise]

When they cease to go after certain markets (like middle America) they no longer have to pretend to support the religious tradition in America or to give a Rat’s a$$ about what a conservative might’ve said. When you go niche market, you can play up to the liberal mindset and raise the cover price like it was the New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly.

Newsweak. Now more than ever.

[mdk1960]

“It’s hugely counterintuitive...”

Whenever someone uses this term what follows is magical-thinking, wishful-thinking, a lie, an outlandish lie, or a damned lie.

[CriticalJ]

Love Newsbusters.

Great story. Just shows that the idiots are running the asylum.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

The new layout, with larger photographs, splits each issue into four parts: Scope (News, Scoops and the Globe at a Glance); Features; The Take (What We Think [You Should Think] About the World); and The Culture.

Just a point of clarification for ya Peej.

[Billthedrill]

Didn't The Atlantic try this a few years ago, or am I remembering the wrong mag? The idea was not to renew certain subscribers so they could tell advertisers that only the monied elite got the mag, changing their target demographic or some such marketing stunt.

Guys, it's newsprint, not diamonds. Less isn't more.