'U.S. News' Slashes Rate Base, Frequency

magazine Call it a news-every-other-weekly. Delivering more bad news for the category, U.S. News & World Report is poised to cut its rate base from 2 million to 1.5 million, and reduce its frequency from 46 issues a year to 36. The cutbacks were confirmed by unnamed media buyers cited by the Mediaweek Web site, which reported the news Friday.

The decision isn't surprising, considering recent declines in newsstand sales and total audience. In the second half of 2007, average newsstand sales fell 7.9% compared to 2006, to 33,757, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Between 2002 and 2007, the magazine's total audience has fallen 12% from about 11.5 million to 10.1 million, according to MRI. In 2007, ad pages slipped 4.6% compared to 2006.

Samir Husni, chair of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi and a close watcher of the magazine business, said U.S. News was repositioning itself by "trimming the fat and focusing more on their new emphasis of listings and evaluating stuff." He said the magazine is trying to be "sort of like Consumer Reports on a weekly or biweekly basis" with new "best of" listings for cars and trucks, high schools, health plans, hospitals, careers, and retirement plans.

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U.S. News is just the latest newsweekly to slash its rate base. Last year, Time cut its rate base 18.8% from 4 million to 3.25 million, and in November, Newsweek announced that it too would lower its rate base 16% to 2.6 million. From 2002-2007, according to MRI, Time saw its total audience fall 6% to 21.4 million, as Newsweek slipped 8% to 18.7 million. Time's ad pages fell 6.9% in 2007, as Newsweek fell 6.7%.

The general-interest newsweeklies aren't alone. Some business magazines are also suffering, as readers flock to the Internet for business news and information. Time Inc.'s Fortune magazine saw single-copy sales slip 11% in the second half of 2007, according to ABC, as sister pub Money fell 12.8%--with ad pages down 17.3% and 16.7% for the full year 2007, respectively. In 2007, ad pages were also down 13.8% at Fortune Small Business, 18.2% at BusinessWeek, and 4.8% at Forbes. But ad pages rose 8.5% at the Economist.

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