Magazine Death Pool

US News & World Report: RIP November 2010

I have come out of retirement to tell say...

I TOLD YOU!!!

What took so damn long? Boy, that Mort Zuckerman has some big, big pockets.

Forget about best colleges. Maybe all that money could have gone to the "Save the Dinosaur Newsweekly Fund."

 

 

The pot calls the kettle black

Does anybody out there find it ironic that Time magazine would run the story from 24/7WallStreet about "The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America?"

If the Reaper was making a list of "The 10 Most Endangered Magazines in America," Time would be a no-brainer.

US News & World Report too scared to kill itself

The Reaper sort of called it, but I am not taking credit yet.

US News & World Report announced it is going monthly while expanding into a "multi-platform digital publisher."

To which the Reaper says: "What's the point of even keeping the magazine?"

USN&WR may as well just pull the plug on its print edition entirely because who is going to read a monthly version of the magazine? What a waste of paper and back office resources!

If that's not enough, the dunderheads proclaim, "Say goodbye to Web 2.0 and welcome to Journalism 5.0."

Unfortunately, the brain trust at USN&WR flunked Magazine Publishing 1.0.

Interesting that this cover says "Who Needs Doctors?" because that must be their subtle message to the medical profession that they won't be seeing their magazine showing up for free in their waiting rooms anymore. The cover should have added "And that goes for nail salons too!"

The Reaper is betting this monthly magazine frequency won't be long for this world.

Which US news magazine will close to move to the web?

Christian Science Monitor John Yemma said in the English newspaper the Guardian that a major US news magazine is going to fold its print edition and move entirely to the web "in the next couple of weeks."

You know how the Reaper believes US News & World Report is River Styx material.

US News & World Report takes yet another step towards obsolescence

It's a bi-weekly. It's a fortnightly. It's a dead magazine walking.

It does not pay to be the number three magazine in any category these days.

US News & World Report was forced to blink and now will be publishing every other week while it focuses on the, cough, web.

Why wait for the inevitable? They should just scuttle the  magazine, change their name and become the JD Power of hospitals and colleges.

Time and Newsweek, you're next.

US News & World Report confirms its status on the endangered list

US News & World Report, always one of the Reaper's surefire candidates for extinction, took one step closer in that direction today by announcing its had cut its rate base 25% from 2 million down to 1.5 million, and lobbing 10 issues off its frequency to 36.

When you are the number three book in one of the hardest hit categories, you have one big target on your back. Clinging on to its "Best Colleges" franchise, this magazine may make Mort Zuckerman wish he kept Radar open and killed this one.

A barber's waiting area favorite, US News & World Report is mimicking Consumer Reports, scaring the bejesus out of its readers, yet impressing nobody. Mort had better sell a building or two to keep this one afloat.

Submitted For Your Approval - US News & World Report

* #3 magazine in a dying category.

* Paper-thin from lack of ads.

* Owner Mort Zuckerman's $10 million write-off of Radar helped balance USN&WR's losses.

* How many copies dropped off in dentist and doctor offices are counted as circulation?

* Nine employees laid off in fall 2005 for "repositioning" into investigative publication.

SURVIVAL ODDS: 30%