US News reported to be cutting back to a monthly

Piece by piece, the smallest of the U.S. newsmagazines, U.S. News and World Report, has been getting out of the news business and relying more and more on its annual rankings and other popular consumer guides. According to a story in the Washington Post, USNWR, which announced in June that it was going to cut back to bimonthly starting in 2009, has now decided to make that monthly.

The decision to cut back to monthly publication means the magazine will exist as much as a Web site as in print. The print edition will focus on the magazine's popular consumer guides, such as its annual ranking of the nation's colleges, while the Web site will offer expanded features such as the Washington Whispers column.

USNews.com already generates 5 million unique visitors a month. Data released a week ago said that Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report have lost an average of 27% of ad pages through November.