Editor of Businessweek Brad Stone said he believes print journalism could make a comeback as the 95-year-old title moved from weekly to monthly circulation this week.
The July edition of the US-based title runs to 120 pages and includes an investigation into Indonesian nickel mines and an exclusive interview with the world’s third richest man, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault.
The title claims a circulation of 220,000 in print and across Bloomberg Terminals, the Bloomberg app and Apple News+.
In its new guise, Bloomberg hopes Businessweek’s emphasis on long-form journalism will be a key driver of sign-ups to consumer media brand Bloomberg Media, which currently claims 590,000 subscribers.
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Advertisers in the relaunch edition include Gaggenau, Polestar, Turkish Airlines, Vacheron Constantin and UBS.
‘There’s still a place for monthly magazines like Businessweek’
While Businessweek has a small core editing team, it draws on contributions from Bloomberg’s 2,900 journalists based around the world.
Editor Brad Stone, who was appointed in January, said the move to monthly print frequency is not a retreat for the brand.
He told Press Gazette: “We’re raising the standards for what we do in print. It’s a larger format magazine that’s on higher quality paper. It’s a much thicker magazine.
“And we have a very crystallised mission to examine and profile the biggest executives and companies and issues in business, technology and politics.”
He added: “I’m extraordinarily proud of this first monthly issue. It just looks healthier than the weekly magazine has in quite some time.
“…It certainly was partly an economic decision, but it’s just partly an acknowledgement of the market dynamics and the way in which monthly magazines still command a lot of attention and respect from readers, from advertisers and from subjects.”
Businessweek claims the most readers per article online of any Bloomberg content. It also includes a daily email newsletter and a daily podcast which has more than one million monthly downloads.
Print daily newspapers have perhaps a decade left, going on current rates of decline. Does Stone think the Businessweek monthly print edition will outlast them?
“Yes, I do. I’m a believer in the leaned-back, distraction-free luxury of print. And I do think that there’s a place for it and maybe even we’ll see a bit of a comeback.
“We all know how difficult it is to sit there and read a 4,000 or 5,000-word investigation online, even on a story or a topic we care about. But people say they want that.
“You know, we’re living in a chaotic and confusing world where we need more of that kind of storytelling and not less. So I do think there’s a place for print.
“And I think there’s still a place for monthly magazines like Businessweek, which is why we’re doing it.”
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