Newsweek has been bought out by IBT Media from IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI). IBT believes that it is capable of making the brand very profitable. IBT Media did not disclose the terms of the deal.
IBT is a 100 percent digital company.
The 80 year old magazine was originally published in New York City in print form in 1933. It was launched by Thomas J.C. Martyn, a former foreign-news editor for Time.
Newsweek was once the second-largest news weekly journal after Time magazine.
Newsweek was sold to IAC/InterActive in 2010, adding the magazine to the Daily Beast news website.
In 2012, Newsweek ceased print publication in the U.S. and focused on an “all-digital” format and shifted to being online-only under the name “Newsweek Global“.
However, on April 29, 2013, Barry Diller, the Chairman and Founder of IAC/Interactive Corporation, stated at the Milken Global Conference that buying out Newsweek was a huge “mistake” and a “fool’s errand”, because of the amount of money his company lost. Since then he started looking for potential buyers.
Etienne Uzac, co-founder and chief executive officer of IBT Media, said:
“With our knowledge of building digital brands and with the power of the Newsweek brand we think we can build it and definitely be profitable. There are revenue models that Newsweek has that are different from what IBT is doing, so bringing the two together there’s a lot of opportunity to grow.”
Newsweek will carry on being an online-only publication. It is still sold in printed form in the UK and the rest of Europe.
Uzac concluded:
“We are 100 percent digital company and so that’s been our forte. In the future there might be some opportunity for print but not right now.”
IAC will continue to operate Newsweek for a transition period of up to two months.