One of America’s longest-running publications is back in print after a year loose in the online wilderness. News publishing icon Newsweek celebrates its 80th birthday with the announcement of its triumphant return to the presses as a 64-page weekly early 2014.
Newsweek lobbed what was to be its final print copy on December 31, 2012, re-launching as the all-digital Newsweek Global. The title had lost near on three million readers worldwide over the preceding decade, dropping to record lows of just one-and-a-half million recorded in June 2012. Spurred by the plummeting sales, the decision reportedly saved Newsweek Daily Beast Company, part-owned by IAC/Interactive Corporation, over $40 million a year.
Jim Impoco, Newsweek editor-in-chief, is confident of success, emphasising a return to form for the legacy title.
“The new Newsweek will be deeply reported and global, which is what it was when it first came out 80-odd years ago and is what it should be now,” he said.
- Jim Impoco, editor of Newsweek
The former New York Times editor took up the job in September, and has already made more than two dozen new hires, with a view to punch up Newsweek’s international coverage.
Earlier this year, small digital media company IBT picked up Newsweek from IAC for an undisclosed amount, and has entered into negotiations with printers and distributors to make a print model viable. Impoco revealed that IBT has plans to build its circulation to 100,000 in the first year, and that the new Newsweek is to be built on a stronger paid subscriber-base instead of a traditional advertising model.
“We see it as a premium product, a boutique product,” he said.
In an interview with the Houston Business Journal, Barry Diller, chairman and founder of IAC, and former publisher of Newsweek paints a bleaker picture, saying, “I wish I hadn’t bought Newsweek. It was a mistake.”
Diller goes on to describe the prospect of publishing a print edition of the legacy publication in this day and age as a “fool’s errand.”
Despite ongoing trends that have seen advertising dollars drive away from print, a number of studies indicate that audience engagement and advertising effectiveness is consistently stronger than most digital alternatives. A recent survey conducted locally by Australia Post saw print press clocking in as the third most effective advertiser channel, boasting 40% engagement. This is well ahead of the first digital entry in the survey, email marketing, which ranked sixth and could muster only 25%.