Media giant Time Inc. announced Tuesday it is selling 18 of its niche titles, including the Boulder-based Mountain Sports Media stable of Ski, Skiing and Warren Miller Entertainment.
“While these titles are good performers, Time Inc. is focusing its energy, resources and investment on our largest and most profitable brands,” Time Inc. chief executive Ann Moore wrote in a letter sent to employees Tuesday morning.
A sale is expected by late this year or early 2007, Time4 Media spokeswoman Samara Mormar said. The company’s goal is a bundled sale.
The sale of Ski and Skiing has been rumored for almost a year. In a 2005 financial report, parent company Time Warner pointed to its magazine wing’s weakening performance. The reference spurred speculation that the world’s largest media conglomerate would jettison some smaller magazines and focus more on big titles such as People and Sports Illustrated.
Last month, Time Inc. reported a 2 percent decline in revenues and an 11 percent drop in net income, citing declines “at certain domestic magazines.”
Included in the sale are Popular Science, Yachting, SaltWater Sportsman, Field & Stream, TransWorld Media’s Surf, Snowboarding, Skateboarding and Motorcross, and Time Inc.’s Parenting and Babytalk titles. The for- sale magazines employ 560 workers.
Time Inc. is keeping Time4 Media’s Golf and This Old House publications, leaving it with 132 magazine titles.
Mormar said the company’s magazines will publish normally. Skiing magazine’s popular U.S. Freeskiing Open, which recently announced a move to Copper Mountain from Vail, will remain unchanged.
The venerable Ski and Skiing magazines essentially created the genre. They were part of the Tribune Co.’s Times Mirror Magazine stable in 2000 when Time Inc. bought the collection.
California-based Active Interest Media is a potential buyer of Ski and Skiing. Its chief operating officer, Andy Clurman, is a former publisher of the Mountain Sports Media magazines and former senior executive with Time4 Media.
AIM’s founder and chief executive, Efrem Zimbalist III, is a former chairman and chief executive of Times Mirror Magazines.
AIM last week added Yoga Journal to its collection of 10 niche titles.
“We are interested,” Clurman said Tuesday, “but I’m not sure how aggressive we would be about it.”
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
