Comments on: Who Would Buy Newsweek?

By: This Week in Review: Newsweek on the block, Twitter as a journalistic system, and more paywall rumblings | Mark Coddington

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:06:48 +0000

[...] next question, of course, is who will buy Newsweek. News business analyst Ken Doctor examined two possibilities: TV-based news orgs like ABC, CBS and NBC looking for a print distribution point, and [...]

By: Newspaper Fan

Newspaper Fan — Fri, 07 May 2010 18:23:31 +0000

Those numbers are staggering. As bad as the newspaper business is right now, I think magazines are worse. I love my TV Guide, but even that is struggling big time.

By: This Week in Review: Newsweek on the block, Twitter as a journalistic system, and more paywall rumblings » Nieman Journalism Lab

Fri, 07 May 2010 15:01:52 +0000

By: glarose

glarose — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:09:24 +0000

The Jon Meacham interview with Jon Stewart (http://www.thedailyshow.com/) provides context for the positioning of Newsweek. The news consumer segment, that is not turned on by “hot and loud debate” or “contemporary web informality”, is sufficiently large to generate sustained profitability for Newsweek, when it emphasizes digital delivery over print.
That Meacham would position Newsweek “to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward” will be supported, with cash, by civil American society.

By: Barry Graubart

Barry Graubart — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:45:23 +0000

Good post. I think their best chance for survival will be a firebrand buyer. There just aren’t that many strategics out there where Newsweek as a loss leader would make sense.
But, there may be a third group: “alternative” strategic buyers. Rather than a traditional media player, could an online media company gain from the Newsweek brand and a small group of its editorial leaders?
AOL has recently gone on a hiring spree to bulk up their proprietary editorial. I’m sure they’d love to add Jon Alter and Fareed Zakaria. Or, could the HuffPost gain mainstream credibility by adding the Newsweek brand?
Of the traditional strategics, the only one I could see would be News Corp. Would Rupert buy it as a “FoxNews print edition”? (though one could argue he’s already doing that with the WSJ.
Most likely scenario: I have a feeling that Meacham or someone similar will end up buying it on the cheap ($1-2m), then ultimately having to shut it down in 6-12 months when they can’t turn it around.