Hong Kong (AsiaNews/AP) - The Far Eastern Economic Review will change its format from a newsweekly to a monthly opinion journal in December, effectively marking the end of the region's leading English-language news magazine, its publisher Dow Jones said on Thursday.

Announcing the decision, Dow Jones Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Peter R. Kann said the newsweekly was no longer a profitable business model in Asia and that the Hong Kong-based Review has been in the red for the past six years.

The new format, which will debut in December also downsize its staff, laying off 80 people, and scale back its circulation "significantly," while the saved resources will be used to beef up The Asian Wall Street Journal, another Dow Jones publication.  The last issue of the Review in its current format will be dated November 8.

The Review was founded in 1946 in Hong Kong by Austrian immigrant Eric Halpern with a mission "to analyse and interpret financial, commercial and industrial developments; collect economic news; and to present views and opinions with the intent to improve existing conditions."  It has since grown into one of the most respected sources of English-language coverage of Asia.

Dow Jones has named Hugo Restall, the former editorial page editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, as the new Review's editor.

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