Time Out

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This article is about the publishing company. For the album by Dave Brubeck, see Time Out (album). For other uses, see Time out.
The distinctive Time Out logo, seen on all its publications
The distinctive Time Out logo, seen on all its publications

Time Out is a publishing company based in London, England. The company's best known product is the Time Out weekly listings magazine. The original magazine, with listings for London, was published in 1968 by Tony Elliott. The first issues had a print run of around 5,000.[1] He remains the owner of the group. The Time Out Group Limited has expanded over the past 40 years to publish listings guides for other cities, travel guides, guides to specific aspects of cities (such as Eating and Drinking guides) and have established a similar presence online.

The Time Out weekly listing magazines for a particular city contains information about events in film, theatre, fashion, literature and all other artistic events happening, as well as eat out and night out sections. Twenty-four cities and larger areas currently published (January 2008 data) including London, Chicago, New York, Paris, Mexico City, Beijing, Dubai, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Cyprus, Moscow, Athens, Singapore, Saint-Petersburg, Bucharest, Almaty, Jerusalem, Kiev, Mumbai, New Delhi, Abu Dhabi, Sydney, Shanghai and Barcelona. On March 25th, 2008, Time Out Kuala Lumpur launched in the Malaysian capital to become the 24th edition of the magazine known as 'the world's living guide'. A Time Out version for Hong Kong is launched in May 2008[2]. Events listings are complemented with articles, typically featuring celebrities appearing in one of the listed events. Many publications are in English. Weekly city guides are in local languages (e.g. the Athens guide is in Greek). The London edition costs £2.95 per week (March 2008 prices) and has a circulation of 86,000 copies and a readership of 374,000 people (Jan-Jun 2003 figures). These figures are down from a record high of 110,496 achieved in Jan-June 1995.

Patti Smith on the cover of Time Out New York, 1998
Patti Smith on the cover of Time Out New York, 1998

Whilst the London edition is solely owned by the Time Out Group, other editions are partly or wholly owned by other entities. For instance the ownership of a Chicago edition of the magazine that launched in March 2005 was split 50-50 between the group and Joe Mansueto.

The Singapore edition is licensed out to in-flight magazine publishers Ink Publishing. Elliott has said in an interview that he wants to expand to Los Angeles and San Francisco once the Chicago venture has been fully launched. Other editions are not owned by the Time Out Group at all – for instance Time Out Mumbai is operated solely by a publisher licencing the Time Out brand. Some critics in the financial press have questioned whether this business model has allowed the Time Out brand to expand as quickly as it might have. The biggest selling Time Out is currently Time Out New York (45% owned by the Time Out Group). First published in 1995, it currently has a circulation of 139,140 and an aging median reader of 39.[3] TONY has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence and an Acres of Diamonds Award for best consumer-magazine launch. It has a monthly offshoot aimed at parents of young children called Time Out New York Kids.[4] The current editor-in-chief of Time Out New York is Michael Freidson.

The Time Out Group Limited conducts most of its business from London, New York and Paris.

In addition to the magazines, Time Out publishes food, drink and restaurant guides for London, New York, Dubai and Paris. For London, its core city, it has also published guides for students, shopping and health and fitness amongst others. Time Out also produces 48 travel guides to cities and regions around the world. The guides are published in the UK by Random House. Although similar in style to other guides, such as those published by Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, the Time Out guides tend to focus on more hip happenings in each city. Time Out was instrumental in bringing about specific listings for gay and lesbian readers, a formula followed now by similar publications.

The Group also publishes an annual film guide, being a compendium of short reviews of all major film releases.

In 2003 the Group reported revenues of £25m and a profit of £228,000. Elliott values his company at "more than £30m". The Sunday Times Richlist 2008 valued it at £40m.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Reynolds, John Moving Beyond it's City Limits - Marketing Week 6 Dec 2007
  2. ^ Crampton, Thomas Time Out Comes to Hong Kong
  3. ^ Media Kit
  4. ^ Time Out New York Kids - home page

[edit] External links

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