Time Out became an iconic brand by filling in a need gap at a very local level for those who wanted to know what a big city had to offer. But the digital wave forced the magazine to revisit its core ompetency. Time Out suffered significantly at the time, but has now identified the opportunities that came with the challenge. Its founder and Chairman, Tony Elliott, speaks to IMPACT on what makes the brand enduring...
The first impression you get when you meet Tony Elliott, founder and owner of the Time Out Group, is that all you ever read about him is 100% true! He is outspoken, has a firm set of beliefs, an uncanny knack for paying attention to detail and a view that most others are less likely to take. Two minutes into the conversation, and it is clear that Tony is exceptional in his ways. Maybe it is the smart casuals that he has worn for the interview (he was also attending a very formal gathering of magazine publishers at the same venue) or his easy way of conversing or the fact that Tony is a product of the 60s and 70s, when convention was just not the order of the day, and definitely not for someone like Tony.
That is perhaps the reason why he left pursuit of a degree at Keele University and became his own boss, launching Time Out back in 1968. The first edition was produced on the kitchen table in his mother’s London home, with a start-up capital of £70 from his aunt. As modest as that sounds, it was good enough for Tony, who continues with that job till today.
The last four decades have seen Tony build an empire and make Time Out an iconic brand in the international magazine business. When it started, Time Out was filling a very simple need gap – listing out things to do in a wide array of fields that included music, theatre, films, restaurants and the like – in cities, where it was easier to get lost in the range of choices available. Travellers and residents looked for credible information and that is what Time Out brought. In the strictest sense, Time Out was just listings – what was happening, when and where and how good or bad it was. But Time Out presented it and packaged that information with such style and rich content that the magazine became much more than just a listing guide.
Time Out’s happy story was fiercely challenged in the wake of the digital revolution, followed by the economic meltdown. Due to the advent of digital, the core role of magazine was easily duplicated on web platforms and according to industry observers, Time Out’s digital strategy then did not keep up with the times. The result: Time Out was in turmoil and Tony Elliott in search of investment, which came from Oakley Capital, in November 2010. Wiser from the mistakes of the past, Tony is now busy building plans for a brighter future.
The Digital Dilemma
Elliott takes a second to respond to the comment many had made on Time Out’s lack of a sound digital approach. “That’s rubbish,” he says, and adds, “I just don’t understand why people keep saying that. In the early 2000s, we made a substantial loss in digital investments like most other companies. And we didn’t have money to invest and lose in anything, which is what continued to happen in online. Companies were making huge investments with nothing to show for it. I am getting so tired of people telling me things like group deal websites are going to swamp our market. It is usually an unbelievable sum that these companies invest, and when you ask whether they made any money, the answer is, they did not. The online world is full of these ‘successful’ digital companies, none of whom have made a penny.”
But that does not mean Tony is not considering the digital medium very seriously. He points out, “There is no avoiding digital. It is going to cost time and money, but you have to do it, so you may as well do it right. For us, digital has become an important platform where users access Time Out and it has created an alternative revenue model as well.”
Time Out was amongst the first few that tried to monetise digital, but the first attempts failed. Things are different now, as brands see Time Out not only for association but also as an avenue for transactions through its site. In the process, Time Out gets a percentage of the revenues. Tony elaborates, “Online is another kind of publishing, but many of the old rules still apply, which means you need quality readership in a certain number and you need them to keep coming back. There is a growing quantum of advertising available, which goes to the site, where there is traffic. Particularly in our case, the experience is that if there is a film company that is promoting a new film, they need to advertise on the Time Out site, because they know that is where people go for films. But the big thing that will be very significant for us is transactions.”
Monetising Digital
While Time Out’s core proposition is information, the magazine puts a lot of editorial behind it in its attempt to create content better than others and make it useful for its readers. According to Tony, people who see this information go and do something about it, whether by going to a restaurant, buying a book, watching a play or a movie. At each point, they are spending money. “We are in a fantastic position, where we can take a percentage of ticketing or other revenue, and this is not true for many others,” Tony explains. Time Out has been executing this for more than five years in markets like the UK. The magazine gets a certain fee when people book restaurants from its site. “If we could get, say, 20 per cent of all restaurants in London booked from our website, and we get a fee for that, that represents a huge amount of revenue that is not present through print. The numbers online are big, so are the revenues,” says Tony.
The plan is to take transactions everywhere. Time Out is building a content management system, with the intention that every Time Out office globally would use it. By that extension, the transaction aspect will also be there in each market, including India. Time Out is at present in the process of working on its tablet app, which would largely be modelled after the iPhone app. Tony says that the company’s mobile strategy has done well in London and New York, and it is expected to be introduced in India soon.
At the same time, Time Out is dabbling with the idea of digital guides. Instead of a full-fledged issue for a city, Time Out would begin with only the digital version and the first markets for it would be Manchester and Los Angeles. Post the Oakley Capital investment that saw Tony let go of half the stake of his company in November 2010, some of these plans have gone to the drawing board, but Tony is keen that digital takes Time Out to the next level.
Another area where Tony is betting on digital is generating information from involved parties. “By definition, everything we write about takes place somewhere and is organized by someone. They can enter all that information in the database themselves, so the acquisition of information is that much quicker and costs us nothing,” explains Tony.
Core Proposition
There was a time when Time Out served a need gap where people were looking for information. Today, most of that content is available in the digital space already. This has changed life at Time Out too, but Tony insists that it has come with its advantages. He says, “We are not a traditional magazine publication. Over a period of time, there have been significant changes in this domain and from the 200- 230 pages we used to print at one time, we now print may be 100 pages. And this has happened because advertising declined post 2000. We decreased the breadth of coverage, but what we are happy about is that we are now able to carry the full amount of information, which we put online, and a shorter version of it in print. You can imagine in the pre-online era, we were trying to pack as much information in the magazine as possible. I always say that Time Out is a lot of little magazines – film, music, theatre – and we try and be as comprehensive as we can in these segments.”
The content will stay compelling only by paying attention to detail, which Tony sees as a by-product of keeping things up to a certain standard. Ultimately, it all comes down to people. Staffers and writers at Time Out ensure that the information is good and there is a feedback mechanism where readers can themselves let Time Out know what did not work. “This is a sort of in-built checks and balances in everybody who works at Time Out, and cares about the quality of information. We are operating on a completely different level of quality than some of the websites you see. It’s better to do slightly less information really well, than try to be comprehensive and do it badly,” says Tony.
The India Experience
Time Out London was always special for Tony, because that was the magazine closest to him, and in Time Out New York (aka TONY), he had found a new dream. Time Out went to several markets since then, but India is where the company’s attention is now.
Time Out has completed seven years in India and according to Tony, it has been a fabulous experience so far. “There is more than one city in India already – we have Time Out in three relevant destinations, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore -- but we would hope, as things allow, to go to more cities. The brand is firmly established in India.”
Apart from bringing most of the things that Time Out is able to do in London and New York, Time Out is also in the process of utilising the events platform and has announced the Time Out Food Awards, which is an award platform for the culinary industry. Tony does not shy away from saying that even as he does not directly edit the Indian editions and is hence not directly involved with them, he sees them as the best in the environment they are in. However, it is the India team that Tony admires the most from the Time Out India experience. He says, “You can tell that everybody cares, and is very aware of the quality of what should be going into the magazine. People here are very comfortable with digital. They are enthusiastic about it and see it very much as a part of what they should be doing. If the right kind of things happen, then the information online will be seen as the important go-to source in India. And the magazine might be an extra. But this doesn’t rule out the role of print.”
Where does India stand in the overall Time Out scheme of affairs? “That’s a very unfair question,” states Tony. “These markets are all different, but there is a lot of potential in India. The key thing here is that they have got well established in seven years, but there is a lot more to do on the digital front now. We will support the market in every way possible.”
‘Print may change from the way we know it, but there will always be demand’
Tony Elliott has been a story of inspiration to many who wanted to follow a dream. The manifestation of his dream was in the form of Time Out, which Tony successfully took to many key destinations of this world beginning from London and New York, to cities like Sydney and Beirut, and of course to Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore. But the journey for Tony has been a challenging one. For almost seven years before 2010, Tony had to hunt desperately for the right kind of investor who would not only help Time Out clear its debts but also bring working capital without taking over the company. His prayers for such a partner were answered in November 2010 in the form of Oakley Captital. Now, Tony has given up half the empire he had created in the last four decades, but according to him, the net worth of his share now is much more than what he was valued at when he owned 100 per cent of the company. Tony speaks to Noor Fathima Warsia on some of his experiences and shares his views on the magazine business.
A very common comment has been that you were not willing to sell Time Out, though you were getting the price, for a really long time. Many view this as your need to have 100 per cent control. Why was that so important?
When I started the business in 1968, for a really long time, there was no overriding requirement to consider possibly bringing in some external finance, which would have required a change in the 100 per cent. If you look at the period from 1995 to last year, in comparison to our history and size, we had made a major investment in New York. In 2001- 2002, we made a substantial loss in the online investment, and then there was a downturn in 2007-08. The actual point was that we had accumulated a lot of debt through constantly expanding and some things not going too well. The business that was operating in the last three years was a sophisticated large business that needed a lot of money and the way it was operating was through bank debt. The level of debt was becoming increasingly difficult to manage because the money we made went in paying interest. We were just standing still. I looked for a long time, close to seven years before last year, for someone to come and be a shareholder in the company, to help take out some of the debt and give us some working capital. But most of the people we spoke to were either strategic or private equity companies, and all of them wanted to take over. I was not prepared for that. The Oakley deal in November 2010 was perfect because it was a 50:50 relationship; all the debt was taken care of, I got some money and access to resources for the future. The way I see it, earlier there was 100 per cent independence but it was a lot of hard work and was becoming unsustainable; what we have today is very good.
How has the experience been since then, of sharing the ownership of Time Out?
There is a background aspect here. In 2008, we had hired David King, who was the financial irector at BBC Worldwide, as the CEO of the business. So even in the period before Oakley, we had changed the structure of the business, in a manner, that I was not the only one having to be there all the time. Hence for me, it hasn’t changed a lot. And if it has, it has changed for the better.
Time Out is present in print and online. Have you ever considered a brand extension in another medium like TV?
Yes, I have often thought of TV and the perfect programme for Time Out to do would be some kind of weekend programme to mirror the interesting things that are happening all around the world. All the people working at Time Out in individual cities could provide us some information about what is happening, and we can make it a cultural news programme. But you need someone who wants it. We spoke to a few networks, but the trouble is that there aren’t that many worldwide television networks. We should do TV, but I don’t think we should let it swamp what we are doing. It is not a priority for us, but we would like to do TV at some point.
The magazine industry is not necessarily the first choice for many youngsters. If you see the kind of passion and talent that the next generation brings, what are your observations?
Content is available in print and online. People often talk about how there is great content online, but it is not like the great old content in print. In the old times, like the 70s and most of the 80s, there was great journalism and people read long articles. Even in the case of Time Out, we had more pages available to editorial. We had cover features that went into 7-8 pages. That has changed today, and we have cover pieces that run just three pages. They do not have the same kind of depth because in the old days, you were commissioning a writer who had the ability to handle a big piece. That is slightly reflected in all journalism today, and the depth of content is going down.
Would you agree with the section of people who believe that one day, everything will be digital and print would have gone out?
No. The evolution at Time Out itself has seen a clear emerging role for print to put forth credible information and give some perspective. Print may change from the way we know it, but there will always be demand to give people stuff they really want to read about in a reasonably considered way.
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