The New York Times reported that "Newsweek is about to begin a major change in its identity, with a new design, a much smaller and, it hopes, more affluent readership, and some shifts in content." Newsweek is reportedly shooting for a core paid readership of 1.2 million in contrast to more than 3 million previously.
Apparently Newsweek's goal is to move away from being a "news weekly" and to having instead an "opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events."
While this move might make sense to Newsweek because people get their fast, up to date news from the 24/7 cable networks and to a lesser extent from their newspapers. Long gone are the days when people were willing to wait a week to read about the latest battle in Congress or Khe Sahn, the latest on the stimulus plan, or on US Airways Flight 1549 crashing in the Hudson River.
But the problem for Newsweek: by going to an "opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events" people have to buy into have Newsweek's version of an opinionated approach. According the the NYtimes aticle, Newsweek is after "its best-educated, most avid consumers of news, ... who have higher incomes than the average reader."
But that role is already filled online by the Huffington Post which offers a wide range of "opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events," and for free. Ditto for Slate.com, and in print or online by Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Esquire.
Newsweek has a well-known brand, but its change would be like Dove soap going after the anti-bacterial hairy crowd.
With broadband, the "best-educated, most avid consumers of news, ... who have higher incomes than the average reader" can have their news and opinion when they want it, where they want it, and for free, or get it from magazine that have an established brand for doing so.
My prognosis, Newsweek will be gone by 2011. The "best-educated, most avid consumers of news" are on broadband, not reading always print.
(Full disclosure, I read online the Huffington Post, Slate, the IHT, NYT, WashPost, WSJonline, and read in print Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Esquire, and the New Yorker.)
Follow me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444 . To be notified immediately of new tweets from those you follow, you can use a PC program such as Mad Twitter, a Mac program such as Twitterrific, or for the iPhone/iTouch, many apps like Twitterific or a web based client such as Hahlo.
Subscribe
Interested in becoming one of our community bloggers? 