WaPo looking to sell Newsweek

The Washington Post Company (WaPo) is putting News-week up for sale in hopes that another owner can figure out how to stem losses at the 77-year-old weekly magazine.

While magazines in general have struggled with steep declines in advertising revenue because of the recession, news magazines such as Newsweek face the added pressures from up-to-the-second online news.

Once handy digests of the week's events, they have been assailed by competitors on the Web that pump out a constant stream of news and commentary.

Despite staff cuts, Newsweek has remained a drag on its parent company, which is also struggling with ad declines at its namesake newspaper.

The Post Company said Wednes-day that it has retained the investment bank Allen & Company to help find a buyer for the magazine.

With advertising revenue falling across the industry, Newsweek has been piling up losses since 2007. The company expects those losses to continue this year.

"Newsweek's staff has been remarkable in cutting expenses and putting out a great magazine," Post Chairman Donald E. Graham said in an interview.

"But we did not see a path to sustained profitability within the company."

In a statement, Graham said the magazine "might be a better fit elsewhere" given the current climate.

Newsweek, which recently underwent a top-to-bottom redesign, was founded in 1933 and has been owned by the Post Company since 1961.

The Post Company's magazine division had an operating loss of US$29.3 million last year, compared with a US$16.1 million loss the year before.

Newsweek sold about 26 per cent fewer ad pages in 2009 than the year before, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. That percentage decline was consistent with the industry average.

In December, the Post Company said it was selling Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine to Fletcher Asset Management Inc, a New York investment firm. Terms were not disclosed.

- AP