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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Media Time Warner Is Getting Out of the Magazine Business

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 3:36 PM

Twitter just exploded with the news from this New York Times story:

Time Warner said it would move ahead on its own with a plan to make Time Inc. an independent company.

Time Warner was considering selling Time Inc, the magazine arm, to Meredith Corporation, but they wanted to keep four of their major, iconic magazines (Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money) around to capitalize on the brands. Now, though, they're just ditching all of the magazines:

Time Warner had originally planned to keep those titles, which executives believed have news gathering synergies with its CNN channel. But the thinking on the four magazines, which have faced industry-wide downturns in revenue, has changed, the people said. Time Warner executives, who had initially approached Meredith about a partnership, walked away, believing that it was a better option to spin off all 21 magazines without a partner.

This is not good news for the magazine industry.

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Comments (7) RSS

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Squeezed between the 24-hour news/sports cycle on the Boob Tube and the Internet, the dead-tree press (other than really specialized niches) is 90-plus percent dead. Periodical print media is the doorstep milk delivery of textual information.

Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber

on March 6, 2013 at 3:44 PM

Web magazines will be dead next, we're going off the screen and into your brain before the end of this decade.

I still buy print, I just don't buy crap.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on March 6, 2013 at 3:55 PM

Maybe if Time's magazines would stop providing fellatio to the top 1% with their faux news and opinions....

Posted by Former Lurker on March 6, 2013 at 3:58 PM

at this point magazines are good for waiting rooms only.

Posted by Conrad McMasters on March 6, 2013 at 4:52 PM

So will they just be "Warner?"

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball on March 6, 2013 at 6:21 PM

They were just "Warner" before they bought Time-Life, so I don't see why not.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on March 6, 2013 at 7:06 PM

Correction Fifty-Two-Eighty : Warner was acquired by Time Inc. Warner will be the winner of a series of incredible idiotic moves, first by Time Inc when it acquired Warner and the worst deal (even I knew that it made no sense for Time Warner) of being acquired by AOL which I thought was worth less than the office furniture owned by Time Warner. I was wrong. It turned out to be worth less than the toilet paper in the many Time Warner bathrooms.

Posted by Ex Time Inc employee on March 7, 2013 at 8:21 PM