"I don’t think it’s a milestone, though it is part of a trend," Dr Ron Davis, chief economist at the Printing Industries of America (PIA) said this week. "There may have been several issues at Newsweek that led them to this, but I don’t think this is some sort of watershed event, or tipping point, in that other magazine are going to quickly start to follow at an increasing rate."

Davis estimated that news/publications are now about 30% of total US commercial printing dollars, explaining: "It’s certainly going down 2-3% every year. It has been in decline and will certainly continue to decline, but it is starting with a big enough base that as a printing function it will never truly go completely away - it will just continue to decline as a percentage of overall print."

Davis suggested there are even some recent bright spots in the US printed news world, citing the growth in community newspapers and adding: "Warren Buffet has moved into mid-sized newspapers so he’s sees a future there."

Newsweek, which said it was losing $30-$40m annually in print and distribution costs, will now try to convert its 1.4m subscribers over to its digital/tablet product — and could be facing a huge liability in subscription refunds, unless enough of them make the leap to paid digital.

And despite the presence of high profile editor Tina Brown there’s no guarantees the Newsweek brand will continue to carry the same clout without a newsstand presence.

Ironically, the company most affected by Newsweek’s digital move, Sussex, WI-based Quad/Graphics spent the last week taking the move in stride.

In a release to PrintWeek and others, Quad/Graphics spokesperson Claire Ho said: "We will continue to perform well for Newsweek through the end of its final print run. Given that Newsweek's print circulation has been declining over the past several years, last week's news was not totally unexpected. It will have a negligible financial impact on our company and will not affect any jobs."

Ho noted how gaining the Newsweek cover printing contract in the late 1970s was a key moment in Quad/Graphics’s growth from small rural Wisconsin printer into a national commercial printing powerhouse.  For the time being, the company prints Newsweek at three facilities, Hartford, CT, Merced, CA and Saratoga Springs, NY.

Quad/Graphics also now has publishing footprint that can easily absorb the loss of one publication - it recently announced a $900m long-term agreement with Time Incorporated, parent company of Newsweek’s primary rival Time, to handle 85% of its total printing for 19 publications.

"Print continues to be a powerful medium," Ho noted. "It continues to be the preferred medium for reading without distraction and the ideal medium for advertisers to get noticed and engage with consumers. Many of our publishing clients are successfully capitalizing on the unique strengths of print in coordination with other channels. After all, it's a multichannel media world and print will always have a place."