#time inc

Dip into the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library’s Time Inc. records to experience the first days of Home Box Office, a new channel that launched to 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, one stormy night in 1972. 

“On their screens that evening, an earnest young man appeared. Welcoming the viewers to the debut of Home Box Office was Gerald 'Jerry' Levin, programming vice president for the new channel. He introduced the evening's two offerings: a hockey game between Vancouver and New York and a film starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda. In retrospect, it now seems more than fitting that the film was titled Sometimes a Great Notion.” —The First Ten Years, a glossy booklet created for HBO staffers as they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the network in 1982

Read more on the blog: HBO in the Archives

Time Inc. announced on Sunday night that it had sold itself to the Meredith Corporation, in a deal backed by Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes.

Under the terms of the deal, Meredith will pay $18.50 a share for Time Inc. — the publisher of once-premier glossy titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People — in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion.  The boards of Time Inc. and Meredith finalized the deal on Sunday evening.

Meredith, which publishes popular monthly magazines like Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens, has arranged for a $650 million cash infusion from the Koch brothers through their private equity arm, Koch Equity Development.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.

It was not clear how much influence, if any, the Kochs would wield over Meredith or Time Inc.  The brothers have long sought to shape political discourse through their support of nonprofit organizations, universities and think tanks but have never owned their own media company.

In a news release announcing the deal, Meredith said that Koch Equity Development would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would “have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations.”  The investment from the Kochs, Meredith said, “underscores a strong belief in Meredith’s strength as a business operator, its strategies, and its ability to unlock significant value from the Time Inc. acquisition.”

Some Koch allies have suggested that the brothers would view their investment purely as a moneymaking opportunity.  But others familiar with the Kochs’ thinking speculated that they intend to use the media properties — which reach millions of online and print readers — to promote their brand of conservatism.  The investment would also give the Kochs a way to combine the arsenal of voter information held by a data analytics company controlled by their network, i360, with the publishers’ consumer data.

Whatever the Kochs are planning, the sale of Time Inc. would almost certainly signify the beginning of the end for the celebrated magazine publisher that Henry R. Luce helped found in 1922.

It also underscores how inhospitable the environment has become for magazine companies, which have crumbled under the pressure of declines in print advertising and circulation.  Rodale, the publisher of Men’s Health and Runner’s World, recently announced that it had sold itself to Hearst, which owns Cosmopolitan and Esquire.  Rolling Stone, once considered a counterculture bible, is exploring a sale.  In July, Emerson Collective, the organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, took a majority stake in The Atlantic.

For Meredith, the acquisition of Time Inc. would represent a long-elusive victory.  A deal between the two publishers fell apart in 2013 after Meredith reportedly said it did not want to acquire some of Time Inc.’s best-known titles, including Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.  Meredith also expressed interest in buying Time Inc. earlier this year before it walked away — in part because it could not secure sufficient financing.  (Time Inc. subsequently said it had decided not to sell itself.)

Meredith is in some ways the opposite of Time Inc.  Its popular magazines are focused on families and women and are aimed more at Middle America than focused on politics, current events, business, sports and celebrity.  Rather than an expensive headquarters in Manhattan, Meredith occupies a campus in Des Moines, Iowa.  That, along with its diversified portfolio — the company also owns local television stations — has allowed Meredith to weather the economic storm fairly well.

Time Inc.’s story has been less rosy.  After Time Warner, the home of HBO and Warner Bros., spun off Time Inc. in 2014, the publisher was left to fend for itself in a world increasingly turning its back on print media.  Bedeviled by relentless cost cuts and executive turnover, the company has struggled to articulate a business strategy less focused on the printed page.

Rich Battista, who was named Time Inc.’s chief executive last year, and the new chief operating officer, Jen Wong, embarked on an aggressive strategy to increase digital revenue, including enhancing advertising technology capabilities and offering customers paid services, such as insurance for pets and a food and wine club.  The company had also earmarked $400 million in cost cuts.

Trump and Republicans, the Koch Brothers are counting on their tax cuts to payoff their end of the Time Inc. purchase.

Will Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated and People become the print version of Fox News?

A long chapter in media history came to an unlikely close on Sunday night with a sale agreement for Time Inc., the publisher of once-prestigious magazine titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People.

The Meredith Corporation — the owner of Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and AllRecipes — agreed to purchase Time Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The deal was made possible, in part, by an infusion of $650 million from the private equity arm of Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes.

Charles Koch, the chief executive of Koch Industries, and David Koch have long sought to shape political discourse through their support of nonprofit organizations, universities and think tanks. But in its announcement of the deal, Meredith said that the private equity fund, Koch Equity Development, would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would “have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations.”

Steve Lombardo, a spokesman for Koch Industries, also said that the Kochs had no plans to take an active role in the expanded company. “This is a passive financial investment made through our equity development arm,” Mr. Lombardo said. The company’s role in the transaction, he said, was similar to that of a bank.

Some Koch allies have suggested that the brothers would view their investment purely as a moneymaking opportunity. But others familiar with the Kochs’ thinking speculated that they could nonetheless use the media properties — which reach millions of online and print readers — to promote their brand of conservatism. The investment would also give the Kochs a way to combine the arsenal of voter information held by a data analytics company controlled by their network, i360, with the publishers’ consumer data.

A copy of HBO On Air—a viewing guide for subscribers—from November 1975 featuring Burt Reynolds for his comedy W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings. Multiple issues of the magazine are held in the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library’s Time Inc. records

By late 1976, HBO had 243 affiliates in 35 states, which served 500,000 subscribers 12 hours of programming a day.

Two years after People magazine debuted on newsstands, Time Inc.’s Magazine Development Group was looking into subway advertising as a way to promote the title. Materials from the New York Subways Advertising Co., Inc. made the case that a poster for People might look nice alongside advertisements for products like Pro-Keds and Rheingold Beer.

Records in this file don’t indicate what sort of advertising the magazine ultimately bought, but these documents nevertheless offer a snapshot of who was trying to reach New Yorkers in the mid-1970s.

New-York Historical Society will remain closed through the end of the month to help support the city’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and to protect the health of our visitors and staff. Check www.nyhistory.org/visit/plan for updates, and in the meantime, learn more about what’s in the Time Inc Records by browsing the finding aids online.

From 1964 to 1974, the Time magazine advertising department mailed out Fourth of July gift packages that included paper lanterns, plastic kites, and even a small letterpress printing plate. Recipients included sales representatives, corporate clients, and government officials.

These pieces of Americana served to weave the name of Time into a patriotic historical narrative as seen in the copy accompanying a set of replica military buttons:

But it was not the Trappings of Uniform that launched the Republic. It was the Spirit and Decision of Men—just as it is the Knowledge and Judgment of today’s Citizens that sustain it. And to provide the Information to preserve and advance this hard-won Democracy is still, as it has been for Decades, the principal Purpose of Time, The Weekly Newsmagazine.

Similarly, a set of red, white, and blue pencils links the editors of Time to the writers of the Declaration of Independence through a shared commitment to the written word.