Adria Media Group to launch Newsweek Serbia

IBT Media’s (parent company to Newsweek) CEO and co-founder, Etienne Uzac, said: “We are glad to partner with Adria on the launch of Newsweek Serbia and thereby extend Newsweek’s brand footprint in Europe.”

Amy Duffin asked Laurie Benson, principal affiliate at Empirical Media, a few questions about the pending launch and plans for the Newsweek brand in 2015:

When will Newsweek Serbia launch?

The first issue will be published mid-January 2015.

Which markets are next? More in Europe and Asia, or will you concentrate on other regions?

More announcements very soon. Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East first, Asia soon to follow.

Newsweek was recently named re-launch of the year by MIN. It’s clear to see why, but what do you think was the main reason for this?

Newsweek has a bold new business model which reinvented a legacy brand for a digital world allowing for each platform to do what it does best. With a large digital footprint providing mass and providing updated news, print is now a premium product, with an audience willing to pay more for the quality physical copy. The magazine is on heavy paper stock, increased paging and perfect bound. It reads like a monthly magazine delivered weekly.  

Newsweek has had a fantastic 2014 since re-launching in March. Aside from new international editions, what’s in store for the brand in 2015?

There will be events and ancillary editorial products that take advantage of the in-depth reporting Newsweek does every week.  

What do you have to say to those who assert print is dead?

One of my favourite questions! I worked for Time magazine in the late eighties, and they called for the death of print then. And wasn’t television supposed to kill the radio? It’s still around, and print brands, whilst having had to face the digital world first, have come out stronger, given the power of their brand name and relationship with their audiences most traditional print brands have bigger physical and digital audience footprints now than they did then. TV is just now facing it, with the growth of OTT and online streaming. And we are even seeing classic digital disruptors going to print with announcements like the recent airbnb launch of print. In the end, print has the power to bring influence and prestige to a product in a way that digital and television never will.

Adria Media Group is a FIPP member company.

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