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Media
Time Out to go free
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 6 August 2012
Publishers of Time Out announced last week that the magazine will go free later this year. The iconic cultural weekly will be available across the capital for free from the autumn, with plans to boost circulation from the current 55,000 to 300,000.
There has been speculation for some time that Time Out might become a free magazine. The title has faced tough competition in recent years, both from the growth of listings in the broadsheet newspapers, especially at the weekend, and from the internet. While arguably no one-stop listings destination for London has ever been properly launched online, the web makes it easy for more casual cultural consumers to check out cinema listings or West End line-ups without investing in a £3.25 magazine.
Nevertheless, the Time Out brand remains strong, and current Editor-In-Chief Tim Arthur insists that the decision to make the magazine free in London is not a desperate bid for survival, but a strategy that the title’s publisher only now thinks is right. Arthur also denied there had been pressure from Oakley Capital, which has owned half of the Time Out company since 2010, to pursue the ad-funded free route.
The Guardian quote Arthur as saying: “This is not driven by private equity, it is something that has been looked at over a good amount of years on and off. [Time Out] is still a profitable magazine, this has not been driven by decline, it is driven by opportunity. As a magazine it was the next thing to look at really, and now feels like the right time”.
The free Time Out will come out on Tuesdays, fitting into an increasingly busy schedule for free magazines in London, where Shortlist comes out on Thursday, its sister women’s title Stylist publishes on Tuesday, and Sport magazine is distributed on Fridays.
