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 ...
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..”
Heh. I’m “committed” to cancelling my subscription I’ve held since 1967.
......said the magazine will aim for a “smaller base of very committed subscribers.....
The operative word is “subscribers”
Note she did not say “readers”. Her vision is to produce an expensive snob symbol for display on a coffee table.
The big difference between the Economist and Newsweak is that the former has content with some value.
I see Utne sometimes at Whole Foods. John Mackey, the CEO is a raging capitalist, but I guess he knows his audience.
“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.
Jesus.
I finally found someone angrier than me.
BTW hat tip to P J O’Rourke and his famous anti Euro weenie rant.
“I see Utne sometimes at Whole Foods.”
I meant to say this yesterday, Utne Reader is like a left wing Reader’s Digest.
I once read the same article, about witnessing a baby’s baptism, I think, in three different mags. Utne Reader, a women’s magazine (can’t remember which one) and some wacky metaphyical magazine that I used to buy and read although I couldn’t really understand many of the articles.
I remember admiring that writer for being able to appeal to so many diverse audiences with what was basically a very simple atory.
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