Newsweeklies slip at the newsstand

0 Comments | USA TODAY, August, 2005 | by Peter Johnson

For the first six months of the year, celebrity and gossip magazines such as Us Weekly posted double-digit newsstand gains while newsweeklies such as Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report saw single-copy sales dip 3.4% to 16.6%.

Newsstand buys are but a fraction of the newsweeklies' overall circulations: Of Time's 4.1 million circulation, fewer than 200,000 are bought at newsstands, while subscriptions remain far more stable. And newsmags' single-copy sales are often at the mercy of big events or the lack thereof.

Nonetheless, the decreases again raise the question of how general-interest publications can hold on to their audiences in a 24-hour cable news and Internet environment while competing against increasingly popular entertainment, pop culture and...