Douglas McIntyre, writing at 24/7 Wall St calls for BusinessWeek to ditch print for digital. Here are two key paragraphs from McIntyre’s article:
BusinessWeek has the opportunity to move completely to the internet and take out all of its circulation acquisition costs along with printing and distribution expenses. The publication would give up a significant amount of print ad revenue, but most of that is likely to disappear in the next few years anyway.
A reader going through the current magazine will notice that a good portion of the content is “news”. Much of that is old before it reaches subscribers. That problem does not exist online.
There are many conversations taking place online about print magazines and whether or when they move to digital editions. Newsagents ought to stay in touch with the trend.
On BusinessWeek, I like the magazine but rarely read the print edition. McIntyre is right, it is out of date by the time it is available.
An interesting view of media future offered by Rupert in the June edition of US Playboy…page 96.
Interesting on the Simpsons this evening – they were spoofing political commentary. As each panelist/journo was introduced they stated their field of expertise. One was TV, one internet and one print media Washington Post. A young character Nelson laughed at this third journalist saying ‘Your medium is dying!’
Thought this spoke multitudes of public perception – something we have all been talking about…
BusinessWeek is so much more than just a U.S. printed magazine right now anyway. Look at the nine local language print editions, the blogs, podcasts and online-only content.
I don’t agree that much of the content in the printed edition is out-of-date before it gets to the reader. BusinessWeek often makes the news and it’s certainly ahead of much of its competition in reporting trends and analysis of topical items. I think BusinessWeek has got an almost perfect combination of print and online.