Meredith Corp confirmed on Sept. 16 that it sold the TIME media brand to tech billionaire and wife Marc and Lynne Benioff for $190 million in cash. Both parties, however, were quick to clarify that Benioff acquired TIME personally, as a family investment and will not be involved in journalistic decisions with the publication.
To be clear, Meredith Corp said the transaction between the publication and the Benioffs is separate from Salesforce.com Inc which Marc founded in March 1999. TIME will not be connected in any manner or form with Salesforce because Marc and Lynne will not be operators of the publication.
Marc still serves as the co-chief executive officer of Salesforce and currently has a net worth of $6.5 billion.
TIME which has been found in 1923 has been faced with declining print advertising in the recent years, Bloomberg noted. Its venture out of digital publication has managed to keep the company still reach more than 100 million readers. People across the world still wait for their Person of the Year releases.
Meredith Corp has been publishing Better Homes & Gardens before it acquired TIME as part of its $1.8 billion takeovers of TIME Inc. in January. The media company is more popular for its brands Sports Illustrated, Fortune and eventually TIME.
On Sunday, however, the media company also announced its sales of Fortune and Sports Illustrated and said will be focusing on brands that have a more solid audience and advertisers like entertainment, food, lifestyle, home, parenting, beauty, and fashion. All information related to other deals will be made in the following months, the company said.
In a letter from TIME editor Edward Felsenthal that he shared on Sept. 16, he described the deal with the Benioffs as "a confluence of purpose." The publication was especially impressed with how the Benioff family demonstrated their devotion to community and to resolving some of society's most complex problems. They recognized the Benioffs commitment in community efforts like building children's hospitals or addressing homelessness.
But the most significant connection TIME saw with the Benioffs is in their belief of how competing ideas shall be welcomed constructively and that journalism should be exercised in the highest quality.
Felsenthal mentioned that his staff and the readers will see TIME launch video content that will see nearly 2 billion streams in 2018. He also highlighted TIME's achievement recently that included winning an Emmy last fall. At present, TIME still holds being the largest U.S. print title with existing 2 million subscribers.
In the same, Felsenthal said the Benioffs expressed their deep respect of the TIME organization. The tech billionaire stressed that he and his wife have no operational control over the publication and would only want to be stewards of the brand that he described as both "historic" and "iconic."
