• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 14, 2007

Newsweek.com will soon host a new weekly show about politics, executive editor Jon Meacham announced Tuesday. Produced by TV veteran Tammy Haddad, most recently executive producer of "Hardball With Chris Matthews" and previously vice president of political coverage for MSNBC, the new show is the latest major change at the company. It follows a major redesign of both the Web site and the print magazine and a shakeup of the title's top management.

Haddad has a large stable of columnists, reporters and contributors to draw from, including senior editor Jonathan Alter and senior Washington correspondent Howard Fineman. Alter and Fineman are already on-air analysts for NBC and MSNBC. Fineman's previous TV experience includes appearances on "Nightline," "Fox News Sunday" and "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

In addition to streamlining navigation and interactivity options, the Web site's October redesign introduced 14 new blogs in categories including politics, parenting, science and technology and business. It also hosts a new weekly video message from Meacham, while Fineman conducts interviews with frontrunners in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries.

The renewed emphasis on online content comes as the newsweekly's print version struggles with circulation and ad revenue. In the first three quarters of 2007, Newsweek's ad pages fell 8.5% and rate-card revenue dropped 3.8%, compared to the same period in 2006, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. In the first half of 2007, newsstand sales fell 9.3% to 100,092, per the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Finally, according to data from Mediamark Research and Intelligence (formerly Mediamark Research Inc.), Newsweek's total audience has declined in recent years, from 21.3 million in spring 2002 to 18.4 million in spring 2007.

Earlier this month, the magazine announced that Rick Smith would exit after 37 years, vacating both his roles as editor in chief and CEO. Smith had been editor in chief for 24 years, and CEO for 16. Thomas Ascheim, previously general manager of Nickelodeon, owned by Viacom, moved into the CEO spot. Ann McDaniel, an executive vice president at the Washington Post Company, was named to the new role of managing director at Newsweek, and publisher Greg Osberg was named president of Newsweek. He replaces Harold Shain, who moved to sister publication Budget Travel as president and CEO.