Chicago is BusinessWeek's test market

Brandon Glenn of Crain’s Chicago Business writes Wednesday that the new Chicago edition of BusinessWeek is how the national business magazine is testing its strategy of going “local” for readers.

Glenn wrote, “If BusinessWeek Chicago succeeds, other cities will follow, said John Byrne, executive editor and editor in chief at BusinessWeek.com. He declined to identify which cities the company is considering.

“‘You could call us a guinea pig in a way,’ Mr. Arndt said. ‘The hope is that if it works here we’d take it into other markets.’

“The magazine will launch without a dedicated Web site in order to focus its resources on the print edition.

“‘I know it may seem counterintuitive given the difficulty that print’s having,’ Mr. Byrne said. ‘But in fact we feel that there’s so much opportunity out there in local markets that we think we’re going to go ahead and make this a big success for us.'”

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