Washington Post 2008 Annual Report Download - page 33

incomes. This will change Newsweek’s competitive set, making it the largest premium news and ideas magazine,
aligned more closely with The Economist,New York magazine, New Yorker,Wired and The Atlantic. Newsweek, Inc.
will increase the subscription price of Newsweek and its national advertising rates to reflect a more valuable subscriber
base.
Internationally, Newsweek is published in a Europe, Middle East and Africa edition; an Asia edition covering Japan,
Korea and south Asia; and a Latin America edition, all of which are in the English language. Editorial copy solely of
domestic interest is eliminated in the international editions and is replaced by other international, business or national
coverage primarily of interest abroad. Newsweek estimates that the combined average weekly paid circulation for these
English-language international editions of Newsweek in 2008 was approximately 460,000 copies.
Newsweek, Inc. has agreements with publishers in a number of foreign countries to produce and distribute foreign-
language editions of Newsweek abroad. Currently, Newsweek is published in Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic,
Polish, Russian and Turkish. In addition to containing selected stories translated from Newsweek’s various U.S. and
foreign editions, each of these magazines includes editorial content created by a staff of local reporters and editors.
Newsweek estimates that the combined average weekly paid circulation of the various foreign-language international
editions of Newsweek was approximately 678,000 copies in 2008.
The online version of Newsweek includes material from Newsweek’s print edition, as well as original content. Newsweek
assumed responsibility for producing Newsweek.com from WPNI effective January 1, 2009. Newsweek.com maintains
a content-sharing, co-branding and traffic relationship with MSNBC.com that has evolved from a contractual relationship
that was established in 2000.
Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, another Newsweek publication, was published 10 times during 2008 and
had an average paid circulation of more than 600,000 copies. Budget Travel is headquartered in New York City and
has its own editorial staff. Newsweek assumed responsibility for production of BudgetTravel.com on January 1, 2009.
Other Activities
CourseAdvisor, Inc.
CourseAdvisor, Inc., an online lead generation provider headquartered in Wakefield, MA, operates as an independent
subsidiary of the Company. Through its search engine marketing expertise and proprietary technology platform,
CourseAdvisor generates student leads for the post-secondary education market.
Bowater Mersey Paper Company
The Company owns 49% of the common stock of Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited, the majority interest in which
is held by a subsidiary of AbitibiBowater, Inc. Bowater Mersey owns and operates a newsprint mill near Halifax, Nova
Scotia, and also owns extensive woodlands that provide part of the mill’s wood requirements. In 2008, Bowater Mersey
produced about 258,875 tons* of newsprint.
Production and Raw Materials
The Washington Post, Express and El Tiempo Latino are all produced at the printing plants of WP Company in Fairfax
County, VA, and Prince George’s County, MD. The Herald, The Enterprise Newspapers, the SCBJ and La Raza del
Noroeste are produced at The Daily Herald Company’s plant in Everett, WA, while The Gazette Newspapers and
Southern Maryland Newspapers are printed at the commercial printing facilities owned by Post–Newsweek Media, Inc.
(10 military papers, 3 free weeklies and 1 paid weekly from Southern Maryland are printed at Chesapeake Publishing in
Easton, MD). Greater Washington Publishing’s periodicals are produced by independent contract printers. The Post plans
to close its printing plant located in College Park, MD, in 2009 and will not move two printing presses to its Springfield,
VA, plant by 2010, as previously announced.
In 2008, The Washington Post, Express and El Tiempo Latino collectively consumed about 136,000 tons* of newsprint.
Such newsprint was purchased from a number of suppliers, including AbitibiBowater, Inc., which supplied approximately
53% of the 2008 newsprint requirements for these newspapers. Although for many years some of the newsprint
purchased by WP Company from Bowater Incorporated typically was provided by Bowater Mersey Paper Company
Limited (in which, as noted previously, the Company owns an interest), since 1999 none of the newsprint delivered to
WP Company has come from that source.
The price of newsprint has historically been volatile. During 2008, the RISI East Coast Newsprint Price Index, which
provides monthly single-price estimates based on marketplace surveys of both buyers and sellers, for 30-lb. newsprint (the
kind of newsprint used by The Washington Post and most of the newspapers published by Post–Newsweek Media, Inc.),
* All references in this report to newsprint tonnage and prices refer to short tons (2,000 pounds) and not to metric tons (2,204.6 pounds), which are often used
in newsprint quotations.
2008 FORM 10-K 21