Newsweek’s departure from print was so brief, there are probably many who didn’t even know they’d left the supermarket checkout racks in the first place. But left they did, on Dec. 31, 2012 to be precise. Sure, they continued to maintain a robust website, and their tablet-PC edition is said to have subscribers numbering in the hundreds of thousands. But everyone knows that print is where you go to be legitimated, so print is where Newsweek is set to venture once more.
On March 7th, the magazine will return to newsstands. Here are a few quick facts about that return:
- Circulation will amount to several hundred thousand copies in the U.S. and overseas, compared with the 1.5 million readers it had when the magazine left in 2012.
- The print product was completely redesigned by designers Robert Priest and Grace Lee.
- The newsroom will have about 40 employees, compared to the hundreds who worked at Newsweek before.
The publisher is convinced that keeping circulation relatively small will allow it to sell advertisers on its regular subscriber base while still keeping print costs manageable.
No matter how you look at it, this turnabout is another testament to the value of having a print product in the marketplace in an increasingly digital world.
