TIME CEO Jessica Sibley sent the following note to staff on Wednesday:
On my first day as CEO—one year ago next week—I laid out our collective vision and strategy for TIME 3.0 with the following goals and priorities:
- Accelerate our path to profitability
- Deliver business results and communicate a clear vision for growth
- Accelerate TIME’s digital transformation
- Reinvigorate the TIME brand: keeping what’s made TIME an iconic brand for 100 years, while reaching new customers, new audiences, driving relevancy and cementing TIME’s position for the future
- Reinforce our core values and set our standards high
- Make TIME the best place to work with the highest performing talent
- Ensure TIME’s business is sustainable for the future
In just 12 months, we’ve made significant progress in achieving these goals. Despite massive transformation across our industry and the world we cover, we have strengthened our business and our brand, all while upholding our mission to provide trusted journalism and reporting on the people and ideas that are shaping the world for our global audiences.
This month also marks five years since TIME became an independent company under the ownership of co-chairs Marc and Lynne Benioff in 2018. We are deeply grateful for their unwavering belief in TIME and their commitment to impactful journalism.
Our collective progress as an independent company—not only in the past year, but over the last five years— is significant and I’d like to take this moment to reflect on our our key achievements since November 2022:
- Produced High Impact Journalism. This year, TIME’s editorial team led the conversation on AI, published the first Spanish-language TIME cover featuring Bad Bunny, and produced essential reporting on the Israel-Hamas war, the climate crisis, and much more. In addition to launching the TIME100 Voices platform dedicated to spotlighting the ideas and perspectives of the world’s most influential people, we also expanded the global TIME100 community with several entirely new extensions, including the first-ever TIME100 AI list and TIME100 Climate list, launching tomorrow.
- Increased Advertising Revenue with Tentpole Strategy. Over the last 12 months, we established our leading position as a premium brand, delivering high-impact programs to our marketing partners. We are on track to finish the year with growth in direct sold advertising sales of +7% YoY, driven by new sponsorships and our pivot to a selling strategy focused on 10 leading tentpoles, including TIME100, TIME100 Next, TIME100 AI, TIME100 Climate, Impact Awards, Impact House, Person of the Year, Women of the Year and more. The success of our tentpole strategy has been powered by:
- Our Global Live Events Business. This year we will produce over 23 events, up from 10 events in 2022. These events are an important evolution for our journalism and our communities. We also established a fast-growing custom events business and grew our total event revenue +70% YoY and international event revenue +14% YoY. Event partners across tentpole and custom events in 2023 include American Family Insurance, Booking.com, Cadillac, Citi, Deloitte, Intel, Fiji, P&G, Verizon, Glenfiddich, Kia, Nissan, UBS and more.
- Innovative Branded Content Products and Programs. Red Border by TIME increased branded content revenue by more than +15% YoY, while introducing innovative new programs for our partners—-from Executive Spotlight interviews and a special podcast episode with Verizon to reimagining five iconic TIME covers with the help of AI, presented in partnership with Intel.
- Diversified Revenue Streams. This year, TIME established several new revenue streams that will provide a sustainable foundation for our business into 2024 and beyond. We launched into e-commerce for the first time with TIME Stamped and developed multiple new strategic partnerships which have led to a combined +19% revenue growth, including new lists with Statista and our first-ever Fast Channel on Amazon Freevee. In addition, we achieved +9% YoY growth in our accolades business.
- Brought TIME’s Storytelling to New Platforms. In addition to launching a new FAST Channel, TIME continued to deliver premium, trusted content across print, digital, live events, and television and film with TIME Studios. We expanded into audio with the Person of the Week podcast, which has featured interviews with actor and author Elliott Page, musician Tim McGraw, former Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, and many others.
- Expanded Our Reach. Today, TIME reaches the largest audience in its history–more than 120 million people around the world across its platforms, with readers under the age of 35 now accounting for 45% of our global audience.
- Democratized Access to Trusted Information. In June, we removed TIME’s paywall, offering audiences around the world free access to Time.com, furthering TIME’s mission to serve as humanity’s trusted guide.
- Executed a Cost Reduction and Efficiency Initiative. We made significant progress in managing expenses across our business while prioritizing investments in areas where we see the greatest potential for growth and profitability, which remains a priority today and will continue into 2024.
As we head into a busy and productive last few weeks of the year, we will continue to build on this strong momentum and growth. At the end of November, TIME will be heading to Los Angeles for the Latino Leaders Dinner, San Francisco for a TIME100 Talks on “Bringing AI Everywhere,” and Dubai for COP28, where we will host a new event for the launch of the inaugural TIME100 Climate list. And, in early December, we will announce the choice for the 2023 Person of the Year—our most highly-anticipated editorial moment of the year!
I am grateful for your dedication to our mission and TIME’s success over the last 12 months. I am looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together in the final weeks of the year.
Best,
Jess
