US current affairs magazine Newsweek, which had ceased publication last year to focus on its website, plans to bring back the print edition early next year.

The magazine expects to begin a 64-page weekly edition in January or February, Newsweek's editor-in-chief Jim Impoco said in an interview to the New York Times.

He said the newly published Newsweek would depend more on subscribers than advertisers to pay its bills, with readers paying more than in the past.

"It's going to be a more subscription-based model, closer to what The Economist is compared to what Time magazine is," Impoco said.

"We see it as a premium product, a boutique product." Newsweek's return to print is being seen as a positive sign for a magazine that had struggled to survive as more readers switched to online versions of newspapers and magazines to get their news.