Newsweek to drop Print Publication - go all digital

[ProfCrash]

I use the website more frequently than the IPad version so I would want access to the website. (shrugs)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Thanks to the internet, I can get all the news and magazine content I desire for free. I see no need to pay for content that offers no value above what I currently get for free.

Last I head, BANANA WEEKLY was still subscriber based. Has that changed?

Aaannnnyyywaaayyyy....

Not all magazines need to go free but most will have (and in fact are trying) to find a balance between free, eyeball-attracting content and paid content. Neither can fund a viable operation by itself. What they need is a relatively low subscription for in-depth reports coupled with a free, fast updating website. The Economist does it pretty well but the digital subscription price needs to come down.

In the pre-internet days most magazines really made their money on ads and the subscriptions and newstand sales rarely did more than pay for the print runs and operations. With digital, the print costs go away but the ad revenue is rarely sufficient to pay the staff, much less produce much profit.

NEWSWEEK is likely to find that going digital is still not going to solve all their problems. Even specialty digital-only news sites are having difficulties these days. News Corp is now trying to get rid of IGN:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012...ogame-website/
Interestingly, IGN would be a good fit over at MSN.

[whitearrow]

I hope they put in place a transition program for print subscribers.

[pagansoul]

I have many magazine subscriptions that give both a hard copy and digital copy monthly. I'm sure in time they will all change to simply digital.

[DustyDisks]

If things go digital there will be a bunch of waiting room tables that will get very lonely.

[StephenM]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

What will you find in the dentist's waiting room?

An old first generation iPad, with old eMagazines on it.

Personally, I usually take my Kobo Vox with me to appointments, so I am already covered for digital content.

[fjtorres]

Some people think Newsweek could have been saved:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=151

The Atlantic quotes Jonathan Alter:

Newsweek is one of the few media brands that is truly global, and giving up its print presence around the world is kissing off a major asset. If he didn't want to sell it, Barry Diller could have cut his losses to the break-even point (and waited for a rebound in the cyclical ad biz) just by slashing the rate base and moving toward a much smaller circulation or even controlled circ. The idea in Tina's statement that we're moving to an "all digital" media environment is wrong. In the 1920s, people (including FDR) thought radio would mean the end of newspapers and in the 1950s they thought TV would mean the end of radio. In truth, old media doesn't die, it just goes from mass media to niche media. The same will happen to print. Baby boomers raised on print won't give it up entirely until they die off four or five decades from now.

[kennyc]

Books? How quaint.