Posted on 09/16/2018 5:33:46 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Media giant Meredith Corporation has agreed to sell Time Magazine for $190 million, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Marc Benioff, co-founder of the cloud computing company Salesforce.com, and his wife Lynn Benioff are purchasing the publication, they confirmed to the Journal. The proposed sale to the Benioffs is expected to close within 30 days and will be unrelated to Salesforce.com.
They also told the newspaper that they wont have any day-to-day influence over the magazines operations, nor will they have any journalistic input.
Were investing in a company with tremendous impact on the world, one that is also an incredibly strong business. Thats what were looking for when we invest as a family, Marc Benioff told the newspaper.
He added that Time is the only magazine they are planning to purchase from Meredith.
The couple will be taking over Time amid a turbulent time for print publications.
Print advertising is on the decline and Time cut circulation down from 3 million to 2.3 million earlier this year, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
However, the Benioffs said theyre hopeful given Times large audience and expanded online presence.
Time.com has 31.7 million multi-platform, unique visitors in July 2018, a hike from the 27.4 million who visited its platforms during the same period in 2015, according to media measurement firm comScore Inc.
The power of Time is its unique story telling of the people and issues that affect us all and connect us all, Lynn Benioff said.
The deal comes roughly eight months after Meredith Corp., a publisher with ties to GOP mega-donor Charles Koch, purchased Time Inc. for $1.8 billion.
Time Magazine was one of four publications that Meredith put up for sale earlier this year, including Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated.
For over 90 years, TIME has been at the forefront of the most significant events and impactful stories that shape our global conversation, said Tom Harty, Merediths chief executive, in a statement. We know TIME will continue to succeed and is in good hands with the Benioffs.
I have to agree with you. Not much value there.
I see parallels to Bezos’s purchase of WaPo a few years back.
It’s highly related to Benioff’s Salesforce business. The Federal government is probably their biggest customer.
Today almost all of Time’s stories are: anti-Trump politics, unknown women saving the business world, environmental horror stories, and telling us how great the tech companies are. You get the picture.
If nothing else, Benioff is virtue signaling his support for all the Bay Area “causes”.
Their sister publication, Fortune, is going downhill because they can’t keep their pet Progressive issues from creeping into their stories. Ridiculous bias. They are quickly becoming irrelevant because serious business people don’t want to read that malarkey.
They like to think that they are "becoming more selective."
The buyers better have some deep pockets.
In a few years, they may not even have any pockets at all.
Are they Burning Man attendees?
Yes I wondered about that. How is Time worth millions when a similar magazine, Newsweek, sold for one dollar?
No one from Meredith Corporation was available for a statement, they were occupied with getting the payment to their bank, and laughing all the way.
That’s very expensive toilet paper, right?
That was true fifty years ago but today.... When was the last time anyone purchased a copy of TIME? Or does anyone even have a subscription? Honestly the only time your hear of TIME is when they announce their Man - sorry, Person of the Year. Which is inevitably some bow to PC and the SJWs.
I'm shocked - SHOCKED! - that they still have 2.3 million circulation. That's a lot of doctors and dentists.
Who reads those crappy magazines? None are worth the trouble to buy. Who cares about Time?
190M? I hope that means 190 Turkmenistan Manats.
I haven’t even seen a physical Time Magazine for eight years.... And that one was a five year old copy in a dentist’s waiting room.
I’ll give them $5 for it. No one wants their out of touch liberal rag.
It’s Bezos and the Compost all over again.
TIME for it to fold up and blow away. It has degenerated so much over the decades that now it reads like Charlie Manson is the editor.
How about a fool and his money are soon parted. Actually owning one of the deep state mouthpieces must be a libs wet dream. Just ask Bezos
I think that Time can show subscription and overseas sales records that indicate ‘some marginal’ profits. If you travel throughout the world...virtually every airport news stand will have copies of Time up for sale. You still have some intellectuals who read and quote from Time.
I’m in agreement with you...pricing-wise, Time and Newsweek are both about the same level. In the case of Newsweek, I think they burned all profits and reserves over the past decade. Time might have been smart and cast off the more costly journalists at the beginning of their spiral.
Bump
That’s a lot of toilet paper...
Suckers!
That’s 189,999,999.75 more than it’s worth.
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