The December 31 issue will be the last for one of the world’s longest serving and well known magazines, transitioning to an all-digital format, to be called Newsweek Global.
Since 2008, Newsweek has undergone internal and external changes designed to shift the magazine’s focus and audience in a bid to improve its finance. It has however faced difficulties in competing with online news sources to provide news in a weekly publication.
The weekly magazine refocused its content on opinion and commentary beginning with its May 24, 2009 issue. It shrank its subscriber rate base, from 3.1 million to 2.6 million in early 2008, to 1.9 million in July 2009 and then to 1.5 million in January 2010 – a decline of 50 per cent in one year.
Tina Brown, editor-in-chief and founder of The Newsweek Daily Beast Company and Baba Shetty, chief executive said in a statement that Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication ‘will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context’.
Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast.
Currently, 39 per cent of Americans say they get their news from an online source, according to a Pew Research Centre study released last month. The statement says, “In Newsweek’s judgment, we reached a tipping point at which we can most efficiently and effectively reach our readers in all-digital format. This was not the case just two years ago. It will increasingly be the case in the years ahead.”
The American weekly news magazine is published in New York City, and is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is published in four English language editions and 12 global editions written in the language of the circulation region. The first issue was published on February 17, 1933.
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