Turning a Page: Newsweek Ends Print Run

Concepts: new media ecosystem; business of the media; audience preferences; multimodal 

Lasted for almost 80 years in publication Industry, on 31th December 2012, Newsweek magazine finally announce to end their print publication to go ‘all-digital’ (Daniel & Hagey 2012). After a significant drop in their main source of revenue, print-sales and the advertising about 1.5 million and 80 percent respectively, Newsweek cumulative loss are approximately reach up $40 million a year. Daniel & Hagey (2012) also add that the magazine is now part of the news and commentary site of The Daily Beast. Last year, The Daily Beast revenue has grown as high as 36 percent with five million unique visitors monthly, thus, position itself as a good marketing platform for Newsweek. According to the former editor of the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, Ms. Brown, argues that, "the cover will play the same role it has as a wonderful marketplace of ideas." eventhough the Newsweek has are now available online. This idea was earlier supported by the famous PR practitioner Kres (2006), where he said “Newspaper, magazine and many other kind of texts are no longer just written but ‘designed’ and multimodality articulated”.

Form my perspectives, clearly the changes in the figure is due to the advancement in technology, where the capability of the Internet providers to transmit fast connection, allows people maximize the used of their electronic devices such as smartphone, computers and tablet to ‘deliver’ most of their work with only ‘one click’ or ‘one tap’. In my opinion, the step taken by the Newsweek is a brilliant move. Besides position itself as most widely-read magazine online, Newsweek also are now  free from compete with its former rival, The Times. Keeping pace with the current trend and social contemporary, the styles of marketing are more to reaching the customer instead of hoping for customer to come. Hence, to go online is the best vehicle for a company to stay in the Industry. Besides preserving the earth by reducing the use of papers and chemical ink, the company also may able targets for new readers.

References

Daniel, R & Hagey, K 2012, ‘Turning a Page: Newsweek Ends Print Run’, The Wall Street Journal, viewed 9 June 2013, <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324660404578201432812202750.html>.

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading images.

Lister, M 2009, New media: A critical introduction, Taylor & Francis US.

Naughton, J 2006, ‘Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem’, University of Oxford, vol. 8