Speaking of the newsweeklies' prospects, U.S. News will officially become a biweekly magazine next year, formally ceding the major American newsweekly field to Time and Newsweek.
Of course, U.S. News hasn't been a major player for a while, basically since they decided to eke out whatever they could by becoming the magazine of "America's Best" lists and generally phoning it in on everything else. But as Jeff Bercovici notes, it's pretty interesting to recall that, as recently as 14 years ago, U.S. News appeared to be a peer of Time and Newsweek, at least on some of the standard financial metrics.
Note, however, that today's news doesn't mean that people like Michael Wolff, who forecast the imminent demise of newsweeklies, are correct. Old magazines with well-known brands don't just fold up in the middle of the night like some ill-conceived internet get-rich-quick scheme. They change and attempt to adapt -- maybe not into entities that will ultimately make it in the long-long run, but into publications that their proprietors think might make it. Thus Time's shift to a tighter, trimmer, more opinion-driven magazine with a greater emphasis on the web, and Newsweek following suit. I doubt the widely-circulated general-interest newsweekly as we know it will last much longer, but the "as we know it" part is key. Magazines that (each) generate roughly half a billion dollars a year in ad revenue don't just disappear.
Speaking of which, what the hell happened to Life magazine? Weren't they also a peer as recently as the '90s?
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | June 09, 2008 at 05:51 PM
Nick: Funny you should ask. I almost tried to work the story of Life into this post. But basically, the history is very complicated. It was around with occasional breaks, and in various forms, until last year, and it may come back in some sort of web-only form in the future. I take it as evidence that these sorts of big name magazines don't go quietly.
Posted by: Ankush | June 09, 2008 at 06:20 PM