Magazines

Why the media are Obama Democrats and encourage Divider-in-Chief/Liar-in-Chief Obama:

Time Inc. is selling Parenting and Babytalk magazines as well as 16 other smaller titles, wsj.com reports.

As publishers of Twins‚Ñ¢ Magazine, loved by moms of twins since 1984, we are interested in this story.

Impact graphs:

A total of 18 print names are going on the block, including Popular Science, Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Skiing, Parenting and Babytalk. Many of the titles were acquired in 2000 as part of Time’s $475 million acquisition of Times Mirror Magazines from Tribune Co.

The magazines are expected to fetch in the neighborhood of $300 million, according to people familiar with the sale, although information booklets haven’t yet gone out to potentially interested buyers, these people say. Potential buyers include private equity players such as Wind Point Partners, which owns Active Interest Media, publisher of such titles as Southwest Art, Vegetarian Times and Better Nutrition. Efrem “Skip” Zimbalist III is president and CEO of Active Interest Media and was previously the CEO of Times Mirror’s magazines.

Other potentially interested parties are Providence Equity Partners Inc., Spectrum Equity Investors and Warburg Pincus LLC, among others, these people said.

The planned sale reflects a strategic shift at Time, whose profits have lately been weak, to concentrate on its biggest brands. The publisher now maintains a stable of roughly 150 magazine titles but most of its profit comes from a handful of titles, particularly People and Sports Illustrated.

We’re honored that the Chicago Tribune ranks our Twins‚Ñ¢ Magazine, the magazine that parents of twins have loved since 1984, among the TOP FIFTY! The Tribune’s Amy Dickinson writes: “38. Twins. Twins magazine alternates between amateurish and endearing—not a bad combination, actually—and you’ve got to love the feature in which people send in photos of their kids and you try to figure out which ones are identical/fraternal. You’ve also got to love that Twins insists on calling the kids “monozygotic” and “dizygotic,” not identical/fraternal. OK, these people have their quirks. But in a world of slick prefab parenting magazines, Twins has personality to spare.” And we’re especially tickled because the Trib was our home town paper for 28 years, even though I was a reporter for the rival Chicago Sun-Times’ business section for more than three years back in the mid 1960s. Congrats to Susan J. Alt, our editor and president; Sharon Withers, our managing editor, and Carolyn Munoz, our art director.