Daily Front Row

2012 October 18

Newsweek Goes Completely Digital

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Tina Brown
WILL RAGOZZINO/PatrickMcMullan.com View Gallery

(NEW YORK) After 80 years, Newsweek is parting ways with print and will be exclusively digital by year's end. According to Tina Brown, founder of The Daily Beast, and Baba Shetty, chief executive of Newsweek/The Daily Beast, Newsweek will be fully merged with The Daily Beast by early 2013, with the final print edition hitting newsstands and mailboxes with the December 31 issue. The all-digital version will be titled Newsweek Global, will operate on paid subscriptions, and will include a comprehensive tablet version. 

Founded in 1933, Newsweek began publication as a weekly magazine that managed to maintain its place in the publishing world; this past June, however, circulation fell by more than half, to 1,527,157. In 2010, Newsweek was sold to Sidney Harman who merged it with The Daily Beast. In the spring of 2011, Mr. Harman passed away, leaving the publication in the family's hands. Last summer the family announced that they would no longer invest in the magazine, which led to losses of nearly $40 million a year. "A Turn of the Page" announcement on Newsweek's site was posted, bearing news of the mag's full shift to digital.