U.S. News Plans to Publish Biweekly and Expand Consumer Focus (original) (raw)

June 11, 2008

Critics have carped for some time that U.S. News & World Report had stopped being a newsweekly that both “news” and “weekly” were questionable descriptions.

Now the magazine, which will print just 32 issues this year, has made it official: come January, it will publish every other week, while continuing to expand the consumer reporting and product rankings it has bet its future on.

Executives at the magazine said that the change was not a failing but a new identity to be embraced.

“We’ve been moving in this direction for a long time,” said Brian Kelly, executive editor of U.S. News, though he insisted the magazine was not giving up on news.

The transformation highlights the struggle of all newsmagazines to find a niche, a purpose, that will stem the slide of print readership and revenue. U.S. News hopes that advertisers will be drawn to a biweekly schedule because their ads will stay on newsstands a week longer.

“The question is, can you do fewer things, better?” Mr. Kelly said. “We think a combination of news analysis and consumer service is our sweet spot.”

U.S. News has long been identified with its annual rankings of colleges and hospitals, and with advice for consumers. Last year, the magazine’s owner, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, placed a big bet in that direction, building a Web site of vehicle ratings and reviews that has drawn heavy advertising, and promising similar sites for other types of products.

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U.S. News is investing in its niche as a rankings provider.

While many magazine categories still fare well, newsmagazines face the same challenges as newspapers: the proliferation of around-the-clock news sources and the migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet.

In addition, two British imports, The Week and The Economist, have made inroads in the American market, increasing pressure on Time, Newsweek and U.S. News. The Week offers summaries of articles published elsewhere, covering more bases than its competitors, but in less depth and with a lower cost structure. The Economist is at the opposite extreme, with original, in-depth reporting, commentary and analysis.

Time and Newsweek try to fill all those roles to varying degrees, while also competing online in the 24-hour breaking-news cycle.

But U.S. News, with fewer resources, decided years ago not to try to keep pace on news reporting and to put more emphasis on service reporting. It went from 46 issues last year to just 32 planned for this year, reducing printing and distribution costs. Many of those are special issues with nonnews covers, designed not to grow stale in two weeks on newsstands.

“If you want to survive as a weekly, either you are going to become a news digest like The Week, or you’re going to move more toward one or two really good pieces of in-depth reporting, plus analysis and commentary, like Time and The Economist,” said Samir Husni, chairman of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi, who follows the magazine industry.

For years, the three major newsmagazines have struggled to prop up their circulations, offering deep subscription discounts. The Economist takes the opposite approach, charging more at the newsstand, $5.99, and offering few discounts.

The three American weeklies partly reversed course in the last 18 months, shedding some unprofitable circulation. They lowered their rate bases the sales they promise to advertisers to 3.25 million copies for Time, 2.6 million for Newsweek, and 1.5 million for U.S. News. The Economist has a circulation of 720,000, and The Week 480,000.

As a privately held company, U.S. News & World Report L.P. does not release financial information, and it is not clear whether it operates at a profit. The magazine’s ad pages declined from more than 2,000 in 1999 to 1,640 last year, according to the Magazine Publishers of America. So far this year, the figure is down about 35 percent, largely because of the smaller number of issues.

“We’re all going to be recalibrating the dial for years,” Mr. Kelly said of the newsmagazines. “Nobody’s got it figured out yet. Everybody’s looking over everybody else’s shoulder.”

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