Memo To Time Inc. Staff: The Cull Isn’t Over

Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons has bad news for those Time Inc. staff who figured the worst from the magazine group’s cull was over – the sale of 19 magazines to Bonnier earlier this year and the transfer of some titles to the Internet – there’s more to come.

Parsons told a Merrill Lynch Media Conference in London last week that Time Inc., the largest US magazine publisher, still has too many print magazines and more effort has to go on online.

And even going online is no guarantee of success – Teen People’s print edition got closed last year and transferred to the web, but that site was closed in March, absorbed by People.com,  when it went down to just 218,000 monthly visitors, a drop of 50%. 

Parsons said that when he joined the company 12 years ago Time Inc. had about one-third the number of titles it now has. Then there was a buying binge and it ended up with close to 150 magazines. In the past couple of years the company has been reducing its print portfolio and culling its global staff. “We’ve sold some titles and we’ve closed some titles. We’ll probably look to continue to do that,” he told the conference.

Already this year Time closed down its Life Magazine newspaper supplement.

Parsons’ view on magazines: “Magazines are going to be around for a long time, but they are not going to grow like they have in the past.” He said that digital revenue growth was offsetting print declines. “I think it can be an 8%, 9%, 10% growth business for a long time if we successfully complete the transition to online.”

And he points to one concrete example of why he is so keen for digital growth, pointing to People.com, saying it “is now the second biggest celebrity site on the Web, with the average person visiting 71 pages”.

Apparently his belief in the digital side of magazines is strong enough that he told the conference that, contrary to market rumors, Time, Inc. was not for sale. - June 11, 2007

Keywords:magazine publishing,Time Warner

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