Magazine Death Pool

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%