Home / General / Chris Hughes, Publishing SUPERGENIUS

Chris Hughes, Publishing SUPERGENIUS

/
/
/
1589 Views

the_itchy__scratchy__poochie_show_33

Chris Hughes is selling the New Republic:

I have some difficult news today: I have decided to put The New Republic up for sale. I bought this company nearly four years ago to ensure its survival and give it the financial runway to experiment with new business models in a time of immense change in media. After investing a great deal of time, energy, and over $20 million, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for new leadership and vision at The New Republic.

Over the past few years we have made good progress in reinvigorating this institution. Our readership has grown younger and more diverse, largely as a result of our digital strategy. Our journalism has been widely recognized as impactful, impassioned, and more relevant to our nation’s challenges than ever. As a business, we have launched a brand marketing studio called Novel, built a flexible and fast mobile website, and developed our own content management system. We have made it possible for The New Republic to survive and begin to flourish in its second century.

I think anyone can see through the “oh no, no, no, it’s just that our appeal is becoming more selective” argument that lead the second graf, but it’s even worse than the language implies:

Immediately following the tumult, the magazine’s Web traffic declined by more than 50%, according to comScore Inc., and hasn’t risen much in the last year. In November, the site attracted 2.3 million unique visitors, down 38% from the same month a year earlier.

Hey, they said they were going to break shit!

In terms of content, the Hughes regime was pretty much neither here nor there — it was a good magazine when he took it over and it remained one, with a somewhat narrower stable of writers. But it’s not a shock that his attempt to bring a TOTALLY DISRUPTIVE new proactive paradigm to a field he knew nothing about was a spectacular failure on its own terms. (I hope his next move isn’t to get involved with higher ed.)

But, hey, if the magazine goes under a lot of good writers will lose their jobs but it will totally punish Andrew Sullivan and the ghost of Michael Kelly somehow.

…as Josh Marshall points out, when Hughes took it over TNR had a business model that was sustainable in the manner of the vast majority of political magazines — that is, losing modest enough amounts of money that it could be easily be covered by someone with deep pockets. (Hughes could have kept that model running the rest of his life without even noticing the money.) He apparently transformed it into a magazine that was hemorrhaging money. Still, it was totally IN YOUR FACE!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :