As I wrote last week, Newsweek’s botched digital transition has put the legacy publication back on the auction block. But that botched transition was preceded by a steep decline in subscriptions, according to figures from the Pew Research Center.Since 2007, Newsweek has lost more than 50% of its print subscribers. And while print magazines across the board have been struggling to maintain subscribers.

Clearly, there’s a way for legacy publications to maintain their subscription rates, as TIME has done for the most part. That doesn’t mean they should pretend change isn’t coming — hopefully TIME has a plan to manage the growing number of consumers who expect and prefer digital magazines.But it’s obvious that Newsweek mismanaged its retention program for existing print subscribers. Had they done better in retention, they could have introduced digital + print bundles that gently transitioned their audience online.But by failing to do so, Newsweek had the dual goals of trying to attract new subscribers while growing their digital subscriptions after ceasing print publication.This is a perfect example of why retention marketing is so critical to bottom-line profits for any subscription publication (and why we created the Subscription Retention Handbook to help marketers raise their renewal rates!).