The Tribune Company (which owns this magazine) will likely complete the spinoff of its publishing business this summer—just as that another old-media titan, Time Warner, does the same.
Here’s what the new companies will look like.
| Tribune Publishing | Time Inc. | |
|---|---|---|
| The stable | Eight metro dailies (Tribune, Los Angeles Times, etc.), Chicago magazine, and other publications | 21 national magazines, including once-revered Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and People |
| Revenue | The publishing side’s $1.8 billion revenue in 2013 will drop 1 to 5 percent in 2014, predicts media analyst Ken Doctor. | The $3.4 billion in revenue in 2013 will fall 6 to 8 percent in 2014, Doctor says. |
| The digs | Headquarters will remain at Chicago’s gothic Tribune Tower, which Tribune Publishing will lease from its former owner. | Time Inc. honchos plan to move out of Midtown to the less pricey Battery Park area. |
| Recent bloodletting | Announced last November: 700 job cuts (6 percent of work force) by the end of 2014 | 500 layoffs (6 percent of work force), which began in February |
| Small world moment | New CEO Jack Griffin held the same title at Time Inc. for six months in 2011 before being ousted | New board member Dennis FitzSimons was the guy in charge of Tribune Co. when it was disastrously handed to Sam Zell in 2007 |
| Biggest indignity | A parting gift of a whopping $325 million of debt (Thanks, Peter Liguori!) | Having to leave the iconic Time-Life Building, the company’s home since 1959 |
| Potential suitors | News Corp honcho Rupert Murdoch; zillionaire investor Warren Buffett | Rival publisher Meredith may reopen merger talks, the New York Post reports. |
| Expect to see | An L.A. mogul pick off the Times. “A lot of people would like to buy that paper,” says Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at The Poynter Institute. | Entertainment Weekly shutter its print issue. “It’s pretty thin these days,” Edmonds observes. |