BusinessWeek Sale: McGraw-Hill May Give Away For $1

FT:

McGraw-Hill might reap only a nominal $1 by selling Business Week, according to people familiar with the 80-year-old financial magazine's record of losses

Read the whole story: FT

Comments

[CvillePatrick]

02:04 PM on 07/15/2009

From a business perspective, magazines are mainly a vehicle for advertising--in a way the web site for any magazine may never be (unless some serious innovation takes place). One way to offset the decline in print sales would be to slash the subscription price of most magazines to a (very very) nominal amount. This will encourage more people to subscribe (IF the magazine continues to be good AND if people will think it's worth "the trouble" of recycling--the latter is a very real annoyance to many that is rarely discussed in the media). The increased number of subscribers will ultimately result in increased ad revenue for the magazine (because ad price is typically a function of the number of people expected to view the ad).

If the owners of the mags wake up and focus on the potential long-term revenue instead of short-term costs (i.e., the immediate lost revenue from lower subscription rates), they will see the sense in this. Further, I totally do not understand why newspapers everywhere have not already switched to this type of a model. With the NYT as the major exception, Sunday papers typically deliver a HUGE number of ads and flyers into homes. Some people value that content and others don't. But ANYTHING the paper can do to increase the number of homes that get the print edition and all of those ads every week will result in higher long-term revenue from those ads.

[Tags]

05:12 PM on 07/14/2009

I'll use the money I got from investing in Silicon Graphics on their recommendation.

[Spunky Bunks]

02:25 PM on 07/14/2009

Business Week is dying because it's an outdated dinosaur of 20th century capitalism. It's a rah! rah! cheerleader rag for executives who make huge profits from downsizing their firms to increase stock prices. That's why I am not renewing my subscription any further. They should write about how business policy affects society rather than just the profit making strategy of self-centered executives.

Besides, they have a weekly column written by Jack and Suzy Welch for heavens sake! Can you think of anyone more disguisting who made a fortune off of other people's misery? And these two think they're god.

[oceanlover]

09:55 PM on 07/14/2009

You nailed it on all levels. Where was all the investigative reporting by BusinessWeek leading up not only to, and at the very least, Madoff's ponzi scheme, but the overall impending financial meltdown here in the US? Where is BusinessWeek's journalistic shame? Oh wait, they have none... case in point... Their ridiculous Welch column. LOL What Jack Welch never grasped, and clearly neither did/do any of his supporters, is that although he may have been attempting to please GE shareholders, it was always at the expense of GEs rank and file, and the public at large. In fact, he led the downsizing of NBC bureaus worldwide in the mid 1980s, and set the stage for all other networks, since he deemed there was little financial return in covering the news... If workers are not honored and valued, if jobs are constantly outsourced to other countries, if CEOs think they are worth millions upon millions for the job they do, then the US tax payer suffers as a whole, and shareholder value goes up in smoke. If nothing else proves that, this past year surely has! END GAME Jack. Your strategy did not work in the end, in fact it has been terribly damaging, and GE's current stock price is solid proof.

[Bude]

12:11 PM on 07/14/2009

I'll give you two bucks.

[Copeword]

02:22 PM on 07/14/2009

I'll pony up three dollars. Wait, what am I buying again? Nevermind.

[jalowe1957]

12:09 PM on 07/14/2009

One dollar?

And I thought Mad magazine's single-issue pricing was "cheap."