Time Reveals Its "Person Of The Year" Finalists

Time Magazine has released its list of finalists for 2017"s "Person of the Year" issue - and what a list it is.

After Trump criticized Time for informing him that he was in the running to win "Person of the Year" for the second year in a row - an honor last achieved by former President Richard Nixon, who was named man of the year in 1972 and 1973 - it appears Trump was right once again: He is one of 10 contenders for the honor released to MSNBC - even though editors at Time claimed the phone call never happened (though how else would Trump have known he was in the running, other than a lucky guess?).

The other names on the list are: Amazon CEO and world"s richest man Jeff Bezos, the #MeToo movement, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Colin Kaepernick, the dreamers, Robert Mueller and Patty Jenkins (Jenkins directed the Hollywood blockbuster "Wonder Woman").

Of the names on this year"s list, only Trump and Bezos have won the honor before (Bezos won it in 1999 at the height of the tech bubble.

The competition this year is pretty intense. If the criteria for winning was solely number of headlines in US media, Trump would easily have a lock. His first year in office was marked by the president"s constant feuding with Democrats, Republicans, professional athletes, gold star families...the list goes on.

Kim Jong Un, one might argue, deserves the nod for the outsize impact he"s had on the national psyche in the US, given that he"s the leader of an impoverished nation of 25 million people.

However, in terms of sheer political influence, Xi Jinping would probably deserve the honor. By having his name written into the Chinese constitution and appointing a Politburo with no obvious successor, he has guaranteed himself another five year term after his current term ends. He has also consolidated power over a nation of 1.3 billion people - the largest country on the planet.

Bezos led Amazon through several high-profile acquisitions that saw the company enter the grocery business. The massive appreciation in Amazon"s share price has also helped push Bezos"s net worth north of $100 billion, making him the first American to reach that threshold since Bill Gates back in the late 1990s.

The #MeToo movement has led to unprecedented upheaval in industries - particularly in entertainment and media - as women have come forward to share their stories of sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of powerful men. Time has selected classes or groups of people for the honor before - back in 2014, "person of the year" went to the Ebola fighters.

MbS has orchestrated a "corruption crackdown" purge that brought his most powerful rivals to their knees. It is rumored that his father, King Salman, will soon step down, relinquishing power to the 32-year-old crown prince.

And finally, what list of anything is 2017 would be complete without Colin Kaepernick.

Should Trump win, he would become the eighth US president to win the honor twice. Time has been running the feature since 1927.

The winner will be named later this month, when the special "Person of the Year" edition of the magazine is released.

Meredith, Koch Brothers Buy Time Inc In $2.8 Billion Deal

Confirming rumors that had swirled over the past 10 days, on Sunday night Meredith Corp., publisher of Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living and Family Circle announced it has agreed to acquire all of Time Inc"s outstanding shares for $18.50/share or $1.85BN; including the assumption of Time"s debt, the deal is valued at a total of $2.8 billion. Meredith has secured $3.55BN in debt financing from RBC Capital Markets, Credit Suisse, Barclays and Citigroup Global Markets, according to the FT.

More importantly, the acquisition is also backed with a $650 million preferred equity commitment from Koch Equity Development, the private equity firm of Charles and David Koch, giving the conservative billionaires a stake in one of America’s best-known publishers. That said, the Kochs will not have a seat on Merediths board and, the company said, “will have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations”.

That remains to be seen, especially if Trump now develops aspirations toward Meredith"s Man of the Year award. Needless to say, it is the Koch"s takeover of Time that is giving the left nightmares:

This item about Koch having “no influence” over TIME should give you as much assurance as WSJ’s “editorial independence committee,” which caved to Murdoch just 4 months after the acquisition https://t.co/JUlSLktdih

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) November 27, 2017

In any case, this is Meredith’s third run at 94-year-old Time according to the FT, which publishes Time, People and Sports Illustrated magazines. The deal has been approved by both companies’ boards and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.

As the WSJ reports, "the deal caps the end of an era."

Time, whose namesake Time magazine hit the newsstands in March 1923, emerged as one of the country’s great journalistic enterprises, shaping both the political and cultural landscapes. But in recent years, the magazine publisher lost ground as a shift among readers to digital platforms cut into traditional print revenue and a new generation of online rivals emerged.

Like most other legacy media outlets, Time has been trying to transform itself from a print to a digital media business in the face of successive years of declining revenues but has been shackled with a $1.2bn long-term debt burden. The $2.8bn deal value includes assumption of Time Inc’s debt.  The company has been making sweeping cost cuts, eliminating 300 jobs, cutting back the circulation and frequency of some of its best-known magazines, and attempting to sell its UK magazines division. Time Inc. has also been investing in online video and branded content and even a subscription services for pet owners, yet its print magazine circulation and advertising still account for about two-thirds of total revenue. In the first nine months of the year, magazine revenue dropped 17% to $1.3 billion. Time Inc. claims 30 million print subscribers, although that sounds like the fakest news yet. Time expects to generate about $1 billion this year in nonmagazine revenue.

Time has struggled to find a path to growth since its spinoff from Time Warner in 2014. The publisher’s shares lost more than a third of their value, even as Time has cut traditional jobs while adding digital staffers, reorganized its ad sales and scaled back the circulation and frequency of some titles. As the FT adds:

"Time Inc’s 3½-year run as a standalone publisher has been rocky. It has been hard hit by the erosion of print and has not recorded revenue growth over the past six years. A strategic reorganisation aimed at growing digital revenues and reaching a wider audience has shown some progress, but has been overshadowed by the woes of its traditional magazine business, where revenues have dropped 14 per cent from a year ago."

Time"s new owner, Iowa-based Meredith, publishes monthly magazines aimed at women, including Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living and Family Circle, and has long coveted Time titles such as People and InStyle. It has tried and failed to reach a deal twice before. In 2013, talks with Time Warner, which then owned Time Inc, fell apart and the publisher was spun off as an independent company.

Stephen Lacy, Meredith’s chairman and chief executive, said the combined company will be able to reach almost 200 million consumers across all platforms, including digital. “The vision is the absolute premiere media company in the country with premium branded content on every platform,” Mr. Lacy said in an interview. “We’re very excited to bring these businesses together.” Lacy said he has never met with the Koch brothers. “They won’t have a seat on the board of which I chair,” he added.

Meredith’s own magazine revenue has slipped slightly, but it has somewhat of a buffer thanks to its ownership of local television stations. For the fiscal year ended June 30, revenue at its magazine group fell 2% to $1.08 billion, while its TV station group saw revenue rise 15% to $630 million.

Few in the magazine industry have been spared the downturn in print and difficulties of building a sustainable digital business. Condé Nast, the owner of Vanity Fair and Vogue, is slashing budgets and staff; Vanity Fair’s new editor has been tasked with trimming its costs by 30 per cent. Rolling Stone, the iconic rock-and-roll magazine, is being sold by its founder.

As the WSJ concludes, for Time CEO Rich Battista, the sale may be bittersweet. Soon after he took the reins in September 2016, Time found itself the target of several interested buyers, and then a sale process dragged on for months with no deal. While Mr. Battista has emphasized the company’s digital efforts and ramped up the production of TV programming and video, he had relatively little time to shift Time toward a more robust digital future.

“As a publicly traded company, and one operating in such a dynamic industry as media, we know circumstances can change quickly,” Mr. Battista said in a memo to employees. “Meredith presented us with an opportunity to combine companies to create even greater scale and financial flexibility.”

Finally, in light of the animosity between the Koch"s and Trump, the president can forget being Time man of the year for 2017 or as long as the billionaires are de facto in charge.