"Newsweek" to End Print Publication, Convert to All-Digital Format

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Nearly 80 years after its first issue hit the stands, Newsweek announced on Thursday it will be terminating its print publication by the end of the year.

The news magazine said it will instead convert to an all-digital format in early 2013 that will be named Newsweek Global.

In an article in Thursday's The Daily Beast, Newsweek editor-in-chief Tina Brown and Baba Shetty, CEO of The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, explained the decision: "Our business has been increasingly affected by the challenging print advertising environment, while Newsweek’s online and e-reader content has built a rapidly growing audience through the Apple, Kindle, Zinio and Nook stores as well as on The Daily Beast."

"Exiting print is an extremely difficult moment for all of us who love the romance of print and the unique weekly camaraderie of those hectic hours before the close on Friday night.  But as we head for the 80th anniversary of Newsweek next year we must sustain the journalism that gives the magazine its purpose -- and embrace the all-digital future," they said.

The last print edition of Newsweek in the U.S. will be the Dec. 31 issue.  

Brown and Shetty said they expect the transition to cause "staff reductions and the streamlining of our editorial and business operations both here in the U.S. and internationally."

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