19 Oct 2012

Newsweek's print run ends

3:14 pm on 19 October 2012

US magazine Newsweek in the United States will publish its final print edition on New Year's Eve and move to an all-digital format early next year.

Its owners said the decision to stop printing the 80-year-old publication was made because of "the challenging economics of print publishing and distribution."

The digital version will be called Newsweek Global and will be a single worldwide edition available by subscription.

Newsweek merged with the internet news group the Daily Beast two years ago, the BBC reports.

Daily Beast founder Tina Brown said its site now had more than 15 million unique visitors a month, a 70% increase on last year.

She said in a statement that leaving print was extremely difficult. "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".

It had risen to become the second largest US news weekly magazine, behind Time. But declining circulation and advertising saw it fall into losses.

The magazine was sold by the Washington Post Company to Sidney Harman in August 2010, and merged with the Daily Beast three months later.

Tina Brown is a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.