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Time Warner Media

Time Inc confirms rebrand consideration as it looks to free itself from the shackles of legacy print publishing

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By Jessica Goodfellow, Media Reporter

July 12, 2017 | 3 min read

Time Inc has confirmed that it is in the “early stages” of considering a rebrand that could include dropping its iconic name, as it looks to free itself from the shackles of legacy print publishing to prove it is a truly 'multi-platform', modern media business.

Time Warner confirms it is considering a rebrand as it looks to show it is a modern publisher

Time Warner confirms it is considering a rebrand as it looks to show it is a modern publisher

News that a rebrand could be in the works was first revealed by The Wall Street Journal, which reported that ‘Life’ was being considered as a potential name for the owner of over 100 titles including nearly 100-year-old magazine Time.

Time Inc co-founder Henry Luce created Life magazine in 1936 with a heavy focus on photojournalism. Life was a weekly until December 1972, then in semiannual special reports, and a monthly between 1978 and 2000. The now-retired Life magazine is used as a photo channel on Time.com, and the brand was used for Time Inc’s virtual reality platform, LifeVR.

A Time Inc. spokesperson said: "We’re excited about our business strategy and momentum, and we are in the early stages of considering a rebranding effort to reinforce the success of our transformation from a legacy publishing company to a multi-platform consumer media company.”

It is understood the publisher has held preliminary conversations with some branding firms but that no formal decisions have been made.

The rumoured rebrand comes in the wake of a major restructure at the publisher that will see it cull investment in print in order to focus on digital media and video. As part of the restructure, it announced last month it was cutting around 300 jobs in the US and overseas.

Time Inc recently ended discussions with potential buyers of the company after months of speculation.

In the past few years it has been making strategic investments in digital companies, such as its purchase of MySpace owner Viant and programmatic advertising platform Adelphic, but so far this has failed to balance out downturns in the rest of the business.

The publisher has been hit hard by declines in print advertising across the industry. Total advertising revenue across the publisher fell 8% to $331m in the quarter ended 31 March, as a 32% increase in digital advertising wasn’t enough to offset a 21% decline in print.

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