Dr. Sidney Harman, the nonagenarian who this week purchased Newsweek for a buck, said all the right things Monday on introducing himself to the New York-based magazine's staff.

Not in it for the money. Check.

Not in it for the glory. Check.

But not in it as a print martyr, either. Check again.

Indeed, aside from his lengthy recitation of a Maxwell Anderson essay by memory (no small feat for anyone two days away from turning 92), Harman interested us most by calling the current moment an "inflection point in the history of journalism." It's the point where print stops toppling but gains purchase by extending two more legs: mobile and digital.

"I am persuaded that there is a place for an integrated Newsweek dealing in all three integrated realms -- mobile, print, digital," Harman said. "And I look forward to that as significant opportunity."

Print as part of a three-legged stool -- the very embodiment of durability and flexibility -- would be a sight to behold. If only for selfish reasons, we hope Harman lives to see it.

But the reality is that, for Newsweek to survive, one of three things must happen: Its next makeover must be so complete as to render it unrecognizable compared with the revamp implemented just last year; it must embark on such a costly game of catch-up it's unlikely even Harman will want to play; or that Time magazine must go away.

It's hard to imagine the latter, although stranger things have happened over at Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX). So the more likely dilemma for Newsweek concerns ways to revive and survive in a business that doesn't accommodate a No. 2.

This wasn't always the case. Witness the prosperity both newsweeklies enjoyed for the great majority of years since Newsweek launched itself as a competitor to Time in 1933.

But the rules changed during the recent and worst downturn to hit publishing since the Great Depression. Forget about overlapping content, advertisers today eschew intra-category buys in magazines whose only sin is similar readerships.

It's now a winner-take-all business. And the winner is determined by syndicated audience research that delivers to advertisers everything they want to know about magazine audiences.

Content, sadly, has little influence. "It may serve as a tie-breaker," says Martin Walker, a New York-based magazine consultant. But in the case of Time versus Newsweek, respective circulations of 3.33 million and 1.97 million suggest a competition insufficiently close for content to play a role.

Yes, we know Newsweek purposely reduced its rate base to 2.6 million from 3.1 million in 2008, and to 1.5 million in 2010. But try telling that to the one-stop-per-category advertiser who still purchases space in print. Harman could take Newsweek into a new category, conceivably, although funding a startup would seem easier and cheaper than reformulating such an established brand. Or he could invest so much in his publishing prize that, before he runs out of life, money or interest, Newsweek out-Times Time in the three integrated realms cited by Harman himself. (A comparison of newsweek.com and time.com indicates the challenge ahead were this path taken.)

Otherwise, unfortunately, the inflection point Harman envisions for journalism seems unlikely to include any title that remotely resembles what advertisers consider an also-ran.