Categories: OLD Media Moves

Business 2.0 circulation offer goes to help Fortune?

Hal Morris, writing on the Grumpy Editor blog, wonders whether a recent subscription offer for Business 2.0, which was shuttered earlier this week, was actually designed to pump up circulation for sister publication Fortune.

Morris wrote, “Grumpy Editor notes a big two-for-one mailout a month ago sought to drum up renewals to Business 2.0, which described itself as ‘the playbook for a new generation of leaders.’Â A ‘one-time-only opportunity’ pitch dangled two years (22 issues) for a low $9.99.

“Perhaps the pitch was designed as a ‘backdoor’ circulation boost for Fortune magazine which is most likely to inherit the 600,000 Business 2.0 subscribers.Â Fortune is in the same Time family.

“Business 2.0 has been the subject of rumors for several months.Â Purchased six years ago for about $68 million, the magazineâ€™s downfall was attributed to a decline in advertising revenue.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.