Women’s Wear Daily dropping print for digital starting in April

Women’s Wear Daily, now owned by Jay Penske’s Penske Media, is gambling that it can convert the 105-year-old publication, which is spilling red ink, from five-days-a-week print coverage to daily digital coverage augmented by a glossy weekly print edition.

One source close to the situation said Penske Media plans to invest $5 million to $6 million a year over the next two to three years.

While Penske is spending up to $18 million at Fairchild, sources say, he will have no time or money to pursue buying Mort Zuckerman’s foundering Daily News, which recently hired bankers to pursue a possible sale.

The plan calls for Fairchild to claw back to profitability in the next two to three years.

Meanwhile, M, the men’s fashion lifestyle magazine that was brought back to life by the late Peter Kaplan — at the time he was serving as editorial director — is being converted into a trade title.

Next week, the first edition of that title, M Collections, debuts. Its aim is, not surprisingly, the men’s fashion trade.

Penske, shortly after his company bought Fairchild from Condé Nast Publications last August, confided to staffers that the company was losing close to $10 million a year under its old owner.

One source said that a lot of the loss came from the corporate overhead charges associated with being a part of the glitzy Condé empire.

Without that overhead, a source said, the company’s annual losses were closer to $2 million a year on revenues of $60 million.

Media Ink reported back in January that Penske was mulling cutting back on WWD print. That is similar to the strategy he pursued after buying Variety and shuttering the five daily print editions in favor of around-the-clock digital coverage, a once-a-week print publication, plus more than a dozen special editions.

The final WWD print edition will be April 24. The first glossy weekly edition hits April 29.

“To be clear, this doesn’t mean we’re discarding daily journalism,” a note on Page 1 of WWD on Thursday read. “On the contrary, we’re doubling down with enhanced and invigorated WWD.com where you’ll see deeper editorial content.”

The company said it is picking up new bureaus in China and Brazil this year to add to existing offices in Paris, Milan, London and Tokyo. The company previously ran ads saying it’s looking to hire up to 35 journalists.

It will also be sending a daily digital edition of curated content along with the weekly print edition to subscribers.

“In a media age where algorithms, aggregation and native content have reshaped and destroyed many news organizations, WWD’s core values and mission remain. Get the story first,” the note also said.

Insiders seem divided. One editorial source said, “It’s a good deal, just reformatting of the coverage.”

“It’s heartbreaking to a lot of the veterans,” says one source. “They’re newspaper people.”