U.S. News Continues its Long Goodbye

The U.S. News & World Report is continuing its disappearing act. Less than half a year ago, the former newsweekly announced it was cutting back its publishing frequency to become an every-other-weekly. Yesterday, it announced that henceforth it will publish on a monthly basis.

As we’ve noted on a number of occasions, the “newsweekly” category of magazines has been especially hard hit by  competition from cable TV and websites that collectively deliver a pretty good imitation of a 24/7 news cycle. The weeklies need a new content strategy joined with a new business model; otherwise they may decline to become intermittentlies.

Meanwhile, many news sites saw record traffic on Election Day, one of which was CNN.com, which reported roughly 88 million page views by mid-afternoon Eastern time, including 1.6 million live streaming views.

Slate’s “The Big Money” notes that while the political news sites have seen huge traffic surges (with attendant ad revenue spikes) during this year’s election excitement, the “post-election landscape” will look bleak indeed. “Obviously, these cycles are baked into the ebb and flow of media profits. Elections have occurred for quite some time, and they always bring an inevitable audience decline. But this year, the media industry isn’t easing back into its old, comfortable lifestyle. This year it’s falling back into a pit of despair.”