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Meredith Corp. Acquires Time Inc.

Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2017 at 1:25 PM

In the news: Will Meredith's acquisition of Time Inc. bring a shift in editorial focus?

This week, Meredith Corp. announced that it would purchase Time Inc. According to Meredith's press release, the deal was valued at $2.8 billion ($18.50 per share). Perhaps most noteworthy about the deal, however, is that a sizable portion of the financing -- $650 million, according to the release -- comes from Koch Equity Development, owned by the Koch brothers.

The Koch-backed deal has some media pundits worried that Meredith's publications, now including the traditionally left-center Time magazine, will shift their editorial content sharply to the right. Per the press release, "[Koch Equity Development] will not have a seat on the Meredith Board and will have no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations." Read the press release here.

Also Notable

Video Content Boosts Social Engagement

In a November 20 Foliomag.com piece, Steve Smith discusses the role video content plays in magazine brands' social media engagement: "The 'pivot to video' cliché? in media is starting to become self-parody. We've heard a number of legacy print publishers murmur that this gold rush may be dubious at best and yet another instance of chasing the social media dragon. But for the time being, it's hard to argue with consumer attraction to sight, sound and motion." For individual success stories from magazines reporting engagement increases thanks to video, read the full article here.

A "Pivot to Reality" for Video Content Publishers

Video garnered a lot of hype in the publishing world this year, and it has certainly paid off for some publishers in terms of social media engagement. But for some publishers the execution has proven clunky in reality. Brian Rifkin, cofounder of JW Player, tells Lucia Moses of Digiday.com that many publishers haven't optimized their websites for video content delivery. What's more, the efforts aren't necessarily paying off in terms of revenue. Writes Moses: "Many digital media companies with sky-high valuations based on a bad set of assumptions also hungrily eyed TV deals.... In most cases, the production costs for doing TV shows are pretty equal to licensing costs, and unless you have a syndication deal, the profit is fairly low." Read more here.

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