Concurrent with the leftwing CNN losing almost half its viewership last year, Newsweek, which has also repositioned itself even further to the left in recent years, has also shed wide swatches of its former readers. Now it’s losing its workspace as well:
Newsweek staffers, having suffered through layoffs and the struggle for the title’s future, have to endure yet another loss: their new offices.
Scarcely a year after they moved from their unglamorous Midtown offices to cushier Tribeca digs, staffers were told they would have to pack up again, to relocate uptown.
Newsweek will trade places with Washington Post Co. sibling Kaplan, the test-prep unit, which is outgrowing its Midtown space, according to a March 31 staff memo from Newsweek chief executive Tom Ascheim.
Staffers will make the move in August from 395 Hudson St. to Kaplan’s current space at 888 7th Ave., down the street from Newsweek’s old digs.
In the interim, Newsweek employees will have to endure construction and some internal relocation to make room for incoming Kaplan employees.
Ascheim tried to put a positive spin on the news, pointing out that after the move, staffers will be closer to Central Park.
The news comes at a particularly tough time for the newsweekly. Ad pages fell 26 percent to 1,117 in 2009. With ad revenue declining, the title cut its rate-base guarantee twice in the past year, to 1.5 million in January from 2.6 million a year earlier.
As we asked in December, “Is Newsweek A Brand ‘That Will Disappear In 2010’?”
(Via Big Journalism, appropriately enough.)
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