Time is racing against time.
To be fair, so are most of its cohort who are still reliant on an advertising upturn for expensive print editions, including News Corp. Both companies reported sharp revenue declines this week.
Time Inc. reported another revenue decline in its first-quarter earnings report on Thursday, as the money generated from its traditional means (print ads, magazine newsstand sales and subscriptions) continued to fall. Time now has an equal number of readers for its digital edition as it does for its website.
Meanwhile, its digital side is having trouble making up those loses, with online ad revenue up only 1.4%. Overall, revenue for the company declined $65 million, a 9% drop from the same time a year ago. The company also announced that it would be selling the Blue Fin building, its headquarters in the United Kingdom.
[seealso slug=http://sale-online.click/2015/04/14/newspapers-lincoln-assassination/%5D%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3ETime Inc. CEO Joe Ripp struck an optimistic tone, emphasizing the millions of readers that the company had been able to attract.
"Each month, we are connecting with more than 120 million people in print, more than 120 million digitally and more than 145 million through social media. We remain confident in our plans to extend our powerful brands across platforms and into new revenue streams," he said in a quote from the earnings release.
It has been about 15 months since the company -- which publishes a variety of notable magazine titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People-- was spun off from Time Warner.
Splitting off print divisions into new companies has been a popular move among media conglomerates, who have sought to improve the value of their more lucrative assets by setting free their struggling print-media companies.
News Corp. is in a similar situation. Split off from 20th Century Fox in 2012, it suffered a 52% drop in profit in its most recent earnings report. That was due in part to currency issues, but it actually has fewer excuses than Time Inc., since News Corp. still houses book and digital real-estate businesses that are doing well.
News Corp's news and information unit, which includes the Wall Street Journal, saw a 12% decline in ad revenue.
News Corp. has done little to pull overall income out of a steep dive, as found by the Pew Research Center.
Newspapers have been hit particularly hard from the decline in print advertising. No media company has been safe from the industry-wide decline, including fashion magazines, which are often bought especially for the ads, and taken a hit.
Digital advertising is proving to be a source of growth, with some forecasts predicting it to hit $80 billion by 2018, up from $50 billion in 2014.