Will New-Look 'Newsweek' Downsize?

Newsweek unveils its new design today. Okay, the redesign was actually unveiled Monday, but I haven't written about it yet because, well, there's not much to say -- at least not about the design per se.

Unlike Time, which underwent a major and widely touted makeover after Richard Stengel took over as editor, Newsweek opted for the low-key incrementalist approach -- more "refinement than revolution," as Jon Meacham puts it in his editor's letter.

Mixed in with the self-congratulations is a thinly-veiled critique of Stengel, both for making Time more browsable and for talking too much about the need to be more browsable.

"Some people in our business believe print should emulate the Internet, filling pages with short, Weblike bites of information. We disagree," Meacham writes. "[I]t is very tempting to make grand declarations, but I am going to try to resist. Hyperbole does not get us very far."

Well, I disagree with Meacham's disagreement. Yes, Time probably traded away some of its heft by giving more space over to charticles, photos and pop-culture tidbits. But heft doesn't count for a lot when no one's reading you. Since Time changed its format, I find I'm more inclined to open the magazine as soon as it arrives and page through it, while Newsweek spends a lot of time gathering dust in my in-box.

Of course, that's also a function of another Time innovation -- the shift to a Friday on-sale date. That was a canny acknowledgment of the shifting function of the newsweekly, from information to entertainment. Newsweek, meanwhile, is still trying to compete for its readers' time during the busiest part of the workweek. It's another missed opportunity.

But there's another change I don't think Newsweek will be able to put off much longer: a large reduction in rate base, or the minimum circulation guaranteed to advertisers. Since January, when Time lowered its rate base from 4 million to 3.25 million (while offering advertisers the choice to buy by audience rather than circulation), Newsweek has been almost on par with its rival in terms of size. But I've been hearing rumors that the magazine is preparing to announce a substantial cut in its 3.1 million rate base, probably by the end of the year. One factor said to be influencing the thinking of Newsweek executives is the success of an experiment conducted with Newsweek International, which saw an immediate improvement to its bottom line after cutting rate base two years ago.

I haven't heard back yet from a Newsweek spokeswoman, but Greg Osberg, the magazine's worldwide publisher, recently told Mediaweek that a rate base reduction is not out of the question.