Will Newspapers be the New Newsweeklies?

Pop quiz: Name a newsweekly.

OK, that's an easy one: Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report (well, maybe not anymore). Extra credit if you got The Economist.

But what if big-city daily newspapers turn into newsweeklies? That's right: weeklies. 

It's not such a far-fetched notion: I hear it's being whispered about as a possibility in the executive suite of at least one major newspaper company as a solution to the current crisis. Here's the theory: Sunday papers are still popular with readers and (relatively) full of ads. The rest of the week, however, the paper is pretty thin, to the point where papers may even be losing money printing some days of the week. 

So why not retrench to Sunday-only–or at least reduce the print edition to two or three profitable days–and use those editions to for features, analysis and news recap, with everything else, including breaking news, left to the Web site? 

It sounds crazy–if nothing else, it would require an enormous cultural and operational shift in newsrooms and production operations. Just look at the Christian Science Monitor, which is planning exactly such a move. 

But it also could be a huge money-saver at a time when newspaper managements are looking for ever-more-drastic ways to cut costs. And it could allow some papers to survive with some sort of print presence while concentrating efforts to make their online business profitable.

With the economy in the dumps and advertising sales plunging, the next few months are going to be enormously trying in the newspaper business–even more so, believe it or not, than the tumult of the past year or two. Newspapers that want to survive are going to have to put every possibility on the table. And becoming newsweeklies–or at least non-dailies–is very likely to be one interesting option.

PS: Martin Langeveld is thinking some of the same thoughts on News After Newspapers.

Comments

[Annette Schulte]

I second the notion, Mark! As Michael Rosunblum says, we're not in the newspaper biz. Newsprint is just one distribution method.