Time spinoff reflects a troubled magazine business

Time will officially become a separate company, completing a spinoff from parent Time Warner that has been in the works for over a year.

With a portfolio of more than 70 overseas and 23 domestic magazines -- including Time, People and Sports Illustrated -- Time has created a widely renowned publishing brand. But over the past decade, it has also suffered from an economic decline that reduced its revenues by 34% and cut its operating profit by 59%.

Time’s troubles are emblematic of the economic challenges facing the consumer magazine industry. While the digital side of the business has been making some gains, overall magazine print circulation (including single-copy sales, subscriptions and even digital replicas) has been down each of the past six years, while the number of print ad pages fell for the eighth year in a row in 2013.

The most recent data show that total magazine circulation dropped 1.4% in the second half of 2013 compared with the second half of 2012, according to the Alliance for Audited Media, which tracks 417 consumer magazines. Paid subscriptions, which make up 90% of total circulation, were essentially flat in the second half of 2013 (down 0.3%) at 158 million copies. Meanwhile single-copy sales dropped around 10% for the second half of 2013 -- to 18 million -- after an 8% and 9% decline in 2012 and 2011 respectively.

The news is somewhat positive on the digital side. Consumer magazines’ online and mobile ad revenue is expected to increase by 22.4% to $3.9 billion in 2014, while digital circulation revenues, including digital subscriptions, are projected to enjoy a 42% boost to $743 million, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. But for now, digital dollars remain just about 10% of the overall revenue pie for magazines and have not offset the print losses, according to the latest data from the investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson.