Newsweek to Offload Budget Travel

Newsweek, a division of The Washington Post Company (WPO - Analyst Report), a diversified media and education company, recently announced that it has agreed to sell Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine to Fletcher Asset Management Inc., a New York investment firm.
 
The terms of the transaction, expected to close by Dec 31, 2009, were not disclosed. The investment firm notified that it will keep essentially all of Budget Travel's employees. Newsweek had acquired the Budget Travel magazine from Group XXVII Communications in 1999.
 
The magazine industry, whose fortunes are tied to the advertising market, has been hit hard by plunging advertising demand amid the global meltdown, as advertisers migrate to the Internet driven by increasing online readership and lower ad prices. This has compelled many publishing companies to undertake cost-cutting measures such as a lower headcount, pay cuts, furloughs, and shutting down of printing facilities.
 
Budget Travel magazine, which has a circulation of approximately 690,000 copies, reported a 28% decline in ad pages in the first nine months of 2009. Newsweek’s namesake magazine has also been reeling under the declining advertising demand.
 
Like Washington Post Company, other newspaper companies – The New York Times (NYT - Analyst Report), Journal Communications Inc. (JRN - Snapshot Report), Gannet Co. Inc. (GCI - Analyst Report) and The McClatchy Company (MNI - Snapshot Report) – have also been grappling with the slump in print advertising demand.

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