Newsweek For Sale, Online Competition Blamed

Yet another print magazine suffers losses from the onslaught of digital competition: Newsweek is up for sale after incurring huge losses over the past few years. An excerpt:

The Washington Post Co. has recently put up the 77-year-old Newsweek magazine for sale, citing financial losses, reports Newsweek.com.

Chairman of The Washington Post Co., Donald E. Graham, said, “We have reported losses in the tens of millions for the last two years… Despite heroic efforts on the part of Newsweek’s management and staff, we expect it to still lose money in 2010. We are exploring all options to fix that problem.”

Since people now have access to more immediate and free online news, the US newsstand stalwart has been struggling with declining ad revenue and circulation. From a circulation of three million in the 1990s, Newsweek promises its advertisers a circulation of only 1.5 million this year, according to GMANews.tv. Its competitor, TIME, ranks first in the US with a circulation of 3.4 million in 2009.

He added, “If anyone should take the blame for this ending, it is me for not seeing early enough and reacting in the right way to the changes that have come to our industry.”