Do We Still Need General-Interest Newsweeklies?

One of the reactions to the news that Newsweek will combine with The Daily Beast was coming up with a new joint name for the two money-losing-but-worthwhile publications.

In Newsweek Weds Daily Beast? Good Luck, The New York Times' David Carr clearly doesn't think that marriage can be saved. The print edition of the Times called the new combined outlet NewsBeast.

Which is better than the name that really symbolizes the problem: The DailyWeek.

Or the actual name of the new parent company, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company.

Given the estimated combined $35,5 million in estimated annual loses of the two combined companies, the more serious question is: do we still need general-interest newsweeklies?

Or, in blogese: 2010: The Year Newsweeklies Died. (That's because I see so many blog posts claiming something else we've all used has died, like email, press releases, etc.)

I actually don't think press releases have died, and I think email will be replaced by texting among people 28+ (those under 28 don't use email).

But I do think the age of the general-interest newsweekly has passed. Time is still around, but its circulation is half of what is was at the start of this century. US News is fading away. And while the print edition of Newsweek seems likely to continue -- for now -- its online version, Newsweek.com, will be shut down in order to drive traffic to the Daily Beast.

The only newsweekly that appears to be doing well is The Economist. I also like Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The New York Times' Week in Review section, that is published on Sundays. But neither The Economist nor Bloomberg BusinessWeek are general interest publications -- they're designed as overviews for people interested in business. There are some other weeklies, but they seem to have a specific political perspective (which puts them into a different category from general interest).

Yes, I know there are lots of other weekly magazines...like People, US, etc. -- but those are celebrity and entertainment publications, not general interest. Since we live in an age that seems obsessed with celebrities (including those whose names are known even if they seem to have no real discernible talent), I don't think the death of the general-interest newsweekly will impact People, US or the others.

In the end, I think it's difficult for readers to justify subscriptions to a general-interest newsweekly -- and difficult for advertisers to justify advertising in them unless they want to target an older demographic.

Meanwhile, the people behind a SaveNewsweek.com campaign -- seems like Newsweek.com staffers or former staffers, makes the following worthwhile points:

• What will be the ramifications for Newsweek’s Web presence in terms of SEO? For branding? For our partnerships with MSNBC and MSN? What happens to Newsweek’s (still-unleveraged) archives? How do you preserve a “national treasure” (as Harman has called it) without a Web presence bearing its name?
• By rolling Newsweek.com into The Daily Beast, the hope—at least according to the Times—would be to absorb the some of the 5 million unique visitors Newsweek clocks each month. But at least 60 percent of those visitors come in through the back door, through Newsweek’s partnership with MSNBC, links on MSN, Newsweek’s Twitter feed, its Tumblr, and elsewhere. If less than half of Newsweek readers log onto Newsweek.com’s actual homepage, how much traffic will really be gained? Certainly not five million uniques.

What do you think? Are newsweeklies dead yet or just going to evolve?

Will Newsweek Survive?

Newsweeklies used to hold an important place in our society. People would read their daily paper, then wait for the analysis from Time or Newsweek.

A key word was "wait."

If people get impatient for downloads to their smartphones (as compared to the former wait we had for dial-up service to connect), waiting four days for a printed magazine to appear is endless.

That's a big problem for just about every weekly still be published. The one exception: The Economist, which is doing quite well, actually, publishing global economic and political news.

I think the latest (I prefer not to say "last") redesign of Newsweek was intended to mimic The Economist.

Unfortunately, that didn't work. And now Newsweek is on the block.

Check out two of David Carr's interesting New York Times columns about the fate of Newsweek, "A Cultural Artifact, on the Block" and "Changing the Course at Newsweek."

Newsweeklies...And Then There Was One...

“News has become a commodity. They already know the news. We’re not in the business of telling people the news,” Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time, told the New York Times' Richard Perez-Pena.

Very startling acknowledgment.

According to the article, "The Popular Newsweekly Becomes a Lonely Category," "Newsweek may be poised to" make substantial changes this year: "Executives have said it will strive to be a “thought leader,” competing more with The Economist than with Time — in other words, a big stride in the direction it was already headed. The strategy includes a major reduction in circulation and operating costs and a focus on an elite audience to attract advertisers."

Here's some further analysis by Perez-Pena:

Unable to compete with the immediacy of television, cable and then the Internet, newsmagazines have been moving for decades in the direction of analysis, commentary and news-related feature articles. That trend has accelerated in recent years, driven by financial pressures. The magazines’ editorial staffs are about half as big as they were in the 1990s, and they have shuttered many of the bureaus they once had around the world.

They still produce some deep, original reporting. But these days, they are more likely to offer a comprehensive survey of a subject to present an argument or offer a prescription — like Newsweek’s recent cover article on why President-elect Barack Obama may come to embrace Vice President Dick Cheney’s view of executive power, or Time’s on how a trillion-dollar stimulus package should be spent.

New study finds that fast-forwarding past ads still raise brand awareness

A new study published in the Journal of Marketing by two Boston College business school professors found that people actually may pay closer attention when zapping past commercials on TiVo -- if only to look out for the end of the commercial so they don't miss the continuation of the program they were watching.

What's more, the researchers found that commercials designed for brand awareness -- including a logo, and simple info/storyline -- could be quite effective.

Check out The Economist article: Watching the watchers: Television advertisements can work in fast-forward.

The challenge for advertisers is that while they need to keep fast-forwarding in mind, they can't make every ad a brand awareness ad. They've also got to sell products.

Perhaps that's good news for PR functions.

Forbes Peter Huber Agrees with PRBackTalk: The Web Lets People Disconnect

In Aug., I posted an article that argued that social networks don't actually bring people closer together. (Check out: Do Social Networks & Video-sharing Sites Bring People Closer Together?.)

In the Sept. 29th issue of Forbes, Peter Huber, a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute and coauthor of The Bottomless Well, wrote an interesting article that validates my article: "Cronkite vs. the Web."

In the article, Huber wrote, "The Web's real power lies as much in its ability to separate, divide and take apart markets and people...The Web doesn't bridge divisions; it multiplies and sharpens them. It doesn't build consensus or national coalitions; it grows factions. Truth be told, the Web doesn't network people at all--it lets them network themselves, which is quite different. The Web is the place where people can roll their own, and given that freedom, people tend to coalesce in relatively small, insular groups...The real genius of the Web, in short, is that it lets people disconnect. That's why it has obliterated the old media. During the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Nobody would ever say that about anything posted on a cronkite.com or a CronkiteTube. There are too many celebrity sites, scattered all over the digital landscape, and they're all saying different things."

Very interesting.

Do Social Networks & Video-sharing Sites Bring People Closer Together?

According to Web 2.0 evangelists, social networks bring people together. Twitter is about collaboration and communication, after all.

But I've been thinking that in the political arena, social media may actually hurt democracy because people can post all sorts of snarky comments because they never see the other people. I saw a lot of snarky comments on a Forbes blog about the Olympics & politics -- many were mean-spirited and were not in keeping with the tone of the original article.

The Economist recently ran an article that looks at the topic. Worth checking out: "The brave new world of e-hatred: Social networks and video-sharing sites don’t always bring people closer together."

For companies looking to do more with social media, what's important is to keep in mind that there are some dark alleys in the social media world, and that it's important to pay attention to what's being said, how it's being said before posting comments.

Remaking of U.S. News & World Report -- less news, less world, more consumer reports

It's tough out here being a newsweekly. U.S. News, which had reduced publication to 32 issues this year, will reduce its frequency even more so. Starting in 2009, U.S. News will publish biweekly (that's every other week for those confused with semimonthlies, which is twice a month), focusing on consumer reporting and product rankings, according to a New York Times article, "U.S. News Plans to Publish Biweekly and Expand Consumer Focus" by Richard Perez-Pena.

Just as I noted in my post from April, Wall St. Journal looks at "what's next for newsmagazines?", Perez-Pena looks at the counterintuitive success of The Economist.

Meanwhile the privately held U.S. News continues to lose advertising dollars and pages; so far ad pages have dropped 35% according to the Magazine Publishers of America cited by the Times as the result of publishing fewer issues.

U.S. News' executive editor admits he hasn't figured out the right path. "Nobody's got it figured out yet. Everybody's looking over everybody else's shoulder," he told Perez-Pena.

No word if U.S. News will change its name to reflect its new focus:

Less News, More Rankings Semiweekly -- I know it isn't easy to say, but the same could be said for U.S. News & World Report.

Actually, I'm sad to see U.S. News take this path. Its ranking reports (Best Hospitals, Best Colleges, etc.) certainly sell well and get good advertising support, but it sounds like it could easily turn into an advertising-supported Consumer Reports. And I think Consumer Reports has a tremendous head start, a strong brand and great integrity.

For another look at the implications, check out AdAge story, "U.S. News Loses Weekly War as Sector's Ad Pages Plummet."

The Wall St. Post

Of course ownership by Rupert Murdoch has not yet changed the Wall St. Journal...It has not morphed into a tabloid, with a headline, "The Economy is hot, hot, hot!!!" accompanied by a photo of scantily clad "Page Three Girl." (According to Wikipedia, "Page Three Girl" are those who appear topless in the British tabloid, The Sun, which is owned by Murdoch.)

Yet many are concerned that he will change the Journal as he has nearly every existing media property he has acquired.

In its article, "America is coming to terms with Rupert Murdoch's purchase of one of its great journalistic institutions," "The Economist" makes an interesting point about the nature of the Journal: "The Journal is not really one newspaper but two -- a newspaper and a highly opinionated conservative magazine. Hitherto it has succeeded in drawing a line between them. Will Mr. Murdoch resist allowing his own conservative opinions to blur that line?"

My bet: Murdoch will certainly start asking questions of his new management team at Dow Jones about the Journal's business, approaches, margins, etc. And asking these questions -- should the Journal.com be available by subscription only, thereby limiting access and lowering its rankings on search engines as limiting the number of people online who can view its articles -- will change aspects of the Journal. But he is too shrewd a businessman to want to tamper too much with his new crown jewel.