TheChristian Science Monitor (CSM), which was founded 100 years ago, in 1908, itself became news when it revealed last year that beginning April 2009 it would be shifting away from a "daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day". The five-days-a-week newspaper, which reaches its subscribers only via post and depends on financial support (subsidy) from the Christian Science Church, has been for some time looking at ways to cut mounting losses amidst falling circulation, which now stands at a mere 52,000, down from all time-high of 220,000 in the 1970s.
The publication has already projected a loss of $18.9 mn in the fiscal year ending April 2009; of this, a major chunk of $12.1 mn will be covered through the subsidy from the Church. "The changes in strategy are projected gradually to decrease theMonitor's net operating loss to $10.5 mn in 2013, so the Church general fund subsidy will be $3.7 mn", said Jonathan Wells, Managing Publisher of theCSM. The new plan, which the company calls the `Multi-platform' strategy, includes augmenting content on CSMonitor.com and launch of a weekly print and daily e-mail editions. Chris Tolles, Chief Executive of Topix.com said, "I think it is a very courageous move."
The newspaper terms the new plan as the realization of Judy Wolff's, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, three goals that have driven what she calls `our evolving strategy'. These goals included producing a website that can be updated 24/7 and delivered instantaneously; focusing resources on the fast-growing Web audience for news; and eliminating the major production and distribution costs of a daily newspaper. "We plan to take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver theMonitor's journalism more quickly, to improve theMonitor's timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs. We can do this by changing the way theMonitor reaches its readers", said Wolff. TheMonitor currently has an impressive number of visitors, about 1.5 million, to its website.
To attract more eyeballs, theMonitor is working towards refurbishing its existing website. In that endeavor, a new design is being planned. Another plan is to transform the website into a portal with comprehensive coverage and a possible partnership with other online news websites. Besides, it is also planning to have a daily e-mail edition. However, the publication is not planning to completely abandon the print format, as it is planning to have a weekly print edition. The weekly print edition, to be launched in April 2009, will be priced at $3.50 per copy or $89 for a year's subscription, as against the current daily print edition that costs $219 annually. "We hope the people who subscribe to the daily will shift to the weekly and that many more who may not have had time to read the daily will find the weekly appeals to them", said John Yemma, Editor atMonitor. TheMonitor's soon-to-be launched daily multi-page electronic edition too will be a subscription-based offering only. TheMonitor has a distinct business model as compared to other regular newspapers, in the sense that it does not rely on newswires as others do. Further, its focus is more on analysis.
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