Consumer’s desires for technologically delivered news is not the only force pushing TIME forward. Recently TIME changed its publishing dates to Fridays instead of Mondays. It is also still spending great efforts on creating a new look in order to appeal to younger audiences. TIME has lightened its stories, and has included even more information about pop culture. Even though TIME is trying relentlessly to appease the public’s demands, according to some it may not be enough.
MediaMark conducts research for magazines. In its latest analysis of TIME magazine, it makes a lengthy statement about the latest consumer data on news magazines, “The news genre may not be dead, but growth and energy is outside the traditional big three news magazines. Whether that is a permanent condition, or a reflection of their current hybrid format, is a question that cannot be answered here. But the attempts by these magazines to become younger, by becoming lighter do not, according to the numbers, seem to be working.” The statement reads on, “While ad revenues grew between 1988 and 2002, ad pages declined. What does this mean? The news genre is at least in need of reinvention and may indeed be saturated.”
From this issued statement one can conclude that TIME might be financially stagnant for now, but it appears as though everyone involved in TIME is thinking ahead for the company. On the TIME.com website, TIME posts, “Early in 2007, TIME was given a new look and structure — with new features and columnists — to best tell the larger story about the world we live in. It’s all part of a broad array of changes that are redefining our brand and blazing a trail for the rest of the public industry.” The statement continues, “With its enormous brand strength and diverse multi-media assets, TIME brings businesses more opportunities for creating full- circle messaging to reach millions of consumers.”
TIME is marketing itself as the standard for the future. It is struggling to adapt in any way, shape, or form to accurately fill the void of what Americans want. The Managing Editor of TIME, Rick Stengel, writes, “Because of the blizzard of information out there, there is not only a need but a hunger for one brand to make sense of it all. TIME is the guide through the chaos. TIME converts information into knowledge, confusion into clarity.” The message seems eerily similar to that of sister company CNN, which claims to be, “The most trusted name in news.”
Article comments
1 - Kevin Eagan
Interesting read. My wife has a subscription to TIME and I must say, I'm disappointed in its news quality. It seems like it's trying too hard to be "hip," and it shows. I wish they'd stick to in-depth world news coverage, because that's what makes TIME great. If I wanted to read about pop culture issues, I'd stick to the Web sites and magazines that deal with POP CULTURE not TIME.
2 - Steve Ellwanger
Greetings. I handle public relations for Mediamark Research & Intelligence. While MRI does collect consumer readership information about magazines, it does not issue the kind of "analysis" cited in this story. Quite often, someone obtains MRI data and uses it to write a report, issue a press release, etc., but MRI does not issue reports on individual magazines. It collects data and sells them to its clients.
3 - Dizzy
Did you unintentionally use the word anachronism instead of acronym?
4 - Kate nyc
Who is John Franklin Kennedy?
5 - Dr Dreadful
John Franklin Kennedy: noted American inventor, naval officer, satirist and statesman. Tragically met his demise at Dallas in 1963 when a rifle bullet, fired by a Mr Oswald who was using the excellent vantage point offered by the Texas School Book Repository building for shooting pigeons, ricocheted off the kite he was test-flying as part of the manned lunar program and dealt him a mortal wound.
6 - Perspectus
John F. Kennedy. The 'F' stands for Fitzgerald.