Newsweek sold, third media entity to change hands this week

The International Business Times, an online-only media organization, announced Saturday that it has bought Newsweek magazine, a move that comes amid a recent spate of media giants changing hands as many print newspapers fall into debt largely due to free online information.

The Boston Globe also announced Saturday that The New York Times, which has owned the paper since 1993, had sold it to Red Sox owner John Henry.

And on July 29 the Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its purchase of seven of Albritton Communications Company's television stations.

For the Boston Globe and Newsweek, the move came after prolonged financial struggles. The Boston Globe was sold for $70 million -- a fraction of the $1.1 billion the New York Times paid for the former print giant, which was the the highest price ever paid for a newspaper.

Circulation and advertising for the Globe's print newspaper plummeted in the years after the New York Times' acquisition, although its online readership has grown in recent years.

The terms of the most recent Newsweek deal were not made public. Back in 2010, 91-year-old stereo equipment magnate Sidney Harman bought the publication for $1, in exchange for absorbing Newsweek's financial liabilities.

The magazine was then merged with IAC-owned website the Daily Beast. IAC chairman Barry Diller has said that buying Newsweek was a mistake.

In its heyday, up until the widespread accessibility of free information brought on by the Internet  drove many print outlets into the ground, Newsweek competed with Time magazine in both circulation numbers and the quality of its content.

Meanwhile, Sinclair's purchase of Albritton seems to be a strategic, not financial, move by the broadcast organization. The seven stations, including an ABC affiliate in Washington DC, were sold for $985 million, nearly $100 million more than initially predicted by analysts, according to the New York Times.

The purchase will expand Sinclair's already wide network, which reaches about 35 percent of U.S. households.

Albritton's director, Robert Albritton, said he plans to focus on the company's Washington DC-focused website Politco.

In recent years, print journalism has faced an economic crisis of Great Depression proportions, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service, entitled ‘The U.S. Newspaper Industry in Transition’.

It cited a “deep recession that has battered crucial advertising revenues, long-term structural challenges as readers turn to free news and entertainment on the Internet, and heavy debt burdens” as the main causes of the print industry’s downfall.

Eight major U.S. newspaper companies filed for bankruptcy between 2008 and 2010, with many of them returning as reorganized companies. The report also said hundreds of smaller papers went out of business or moved to web-only publications since 2008.

Al Jazeera and wire services