Newsweek Retracts: Beginning of its End

First, tonight, a shout out to those who remain less-recognized, generally, in the media industry for their communication skills, and that is our graphic designers and art directors.

Especially in print media, decisions have long been dominated by writers and editors — people of words. But very rarely can text tell the whole story in non-fiction publications. As they say in Japan, “a thousand hearings are less than one view.”

I was reminded of this recently while studying Hannah Fairfield’s graphic representation of what has happened to the domestic magazine industry over the past four years. Her lovely piece demonstrated simply by a series of lines how the overwhelming majority of U.S. glossy magazines have lost advertising revenue — in most cases, very steeply — over that period.

Of the top ten magazines, in terms of advertising pages, as of 2005, eight have suffered deep losses through the end of 2008– People, In Style, Forbes, Fortune, Vogue, Business Week, Time, and the New Yorker. Only two — New York and The Economist, have grown over that same period.

Thus, it was no surprise today to read about Newsweek’s decision to scale back its mission and its audience substantially. The magazine is shedding half of its former mass audience of 3.1 million to concentrate on wealthier readers.

“Mass for us is a business that doesn’t work,” said Tom Ascheim, Newsweek’s chief executive, told The New York Times. “Wish it did, but it doesn’t. We did it for a long time, successfully, but we can’t anymore.”

I cannot say I was surprised. For the better part of a year here at Bnet, I’ve been expressing concern about the fate of the so-called “newsweeklies,” whose business model simply no longer makes sense. Sadly, IMHO, Newsweek’s new plan will prove to be too little, too late.

Expect this title to disappear altogether by this time next year.

-30-