BusinessWeek shifts focus worldwide

NEW YORK – BusinessWeek magazine is abandoning most lifestyle coverage and taking a more global approach to business news as part of a major overhaul to be revealed when its next issue hits the street.

Gone are executive travel, fashion and other soft topics, save for a wine column by noted critic Robert Parker. A news summary in the front of the magazine will expand, and the opinion columns will move to the back.

Steve Adler, editor-in-chief of the magazine, said the redo is so extensive he’s referring to it as a “relaunch” of the longtime chronicler of the business world.

The changes, 18 months in the making, will go much further than a redesign by his predecessor Stephen Shepard in fall 2003, which was the magazine’s first in 20 years. Adler took the reins in April 2005.

In recognition of the increasingly global nature of many U.S. businesses, Adler said that a separate section on worldwide business will be eliminated as more and more stories in the magazine take on a global approach.

The magazine’s new logo is red and white instead of red, white and blue.

But Adler and others declined to reveal details of the actual design ahead of its release with the issue that goes on newsstands Monday. Subscribers will start receiving their copies Friday.

Business magazines have faced tough competition for advertising and audience in recent years amid a proliferation of business news outlets online and the success of General Electric Co.’s CNBC cable news channel.