The Nation, the progressive magazine published since 1865, will publish monthly instead of every other week starting in January.
As part of the change, the magazine will now have “bigger and richer” 84 pages, instead of the current 48 pages, said Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation.
DD Guttenplan, editor-in-chief of The Nation, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, its editorial director, said the publication would continue to focus on in-depth analysis and news from the political left. Ms vanden Heuvel said the team was reconsidering the role the print magazine plays alongside the brand’s other products, including its website, podcasts, events and possible publication as a book, and that the printed cover had a long lifespan.
“People put magazines aside and circle what they want to read,” Ms. vanden Heuvel said.
Nearly all print publications face strong headwinds, including declining circulation and falling advertising revenue, with most readers turning to online products. Mr. Guttenplan said The Nation was in a slightly different situation because most of its subscribers receive 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,” Mr. Guttenplan said. “We need to look out for our readers and our donors” – people who contribute beyond the subscription price.
Subscribers have expressed a desire to “receive more of what we do in print at one time, and less often,” he explained, “because then we can go deeper, we can give them more context, we can give them more context, we can do more investigation.
Mr. Sunkara said: “For us, to be printed or not to be printed was never a question. »
Subscriptions are up 3.8 percent this year, Mr. Sunkara said, to nearly 91,000 at last close. About 80 percent of subscriptions are for print. Including newsstand copies, Mr. Sunkara said, the total circulation is 92,000 to 94,000 copies. End of 2021, the total circulation was 96,000 copies. However, there has been a sharp decline over the last two decades. In 2006, the circulation was 187,000 copies.
“A reduction could be seen as a stepping stone toward a digital-only future,” Mr. Sunkara said, but “it’s a way of providing a better print product to people, rather than moving away from print.”
