The Nation, the progressive magazine published since 1865, will be published monthly instead of biweekly starting in January.
As part of the change, the magazine will now have “bigger, richer” 84 pages, instead of the current 48 pages, said Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation.
DD Guttenplan, editor of The Nation, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, its editorial director, said the publication would continue to focus on long-form analysis and news from the political left. Ms vanden Heuvel said staff were reconsidering the role the print magazine plays alongside the brand’s other products, including its website, podcasts, events and a possible book printing, and that print coverage had a long history. useful life.
“People put aside the magazines and circle what they want to read,” vanden Heuvel said.
Nearly all print publications face strong headwinds, including lower circulation and lower advertising revenue, as most readers turn to online products. Guttenplan said The Nation was in a slightly different situation because most of its subscribers get the print edition and print advertising is not a major source of revenue.
“Unlike almost all of our competitors, The Nation has never made much money from advertising,” Guttenplan said. “We have to pay attention to our readers and donors,” people who contribute beyond the subscription price.
Subscribers have expressed a desire for “more of what we do in print at the same time, and less frequently,” he explained, “because then we can go deeper, we can give you more background, we can give you more context, we can do more research.”
Mr Sunkara said: “For us, to publish or not to publish has never been a question.”
Subscriptions have grown 3.8 percent this year, Sunkara said, to nearly 91,000 at last close. About 80 percent of subscriptions are for print. Including newsstand copies, Sunkara said, the total circulation is 92,000 to 94,000 copies. At the end of 2021, the total circulation was 96,000. Still, there has been a sharp decline in the last two decades. In 2006, the circulation was 187,000 copies.
“A reduction could be seen as a step toward an all-digital future,” Sunkara said, but “this is a way to offer a better printed product to people, rather than moving away from print.”
