Time to Be Time in Five Years
October 3, 2009
Let’s think a moment. In April 2008, BearStearns and then a lot of other banks disappeared. Before I left for work in the UK, 91 banks had failed in 2009. I have a list of companies that I don’t hear much about anymore; for instance, EZ2Find.com (French metasearch system), Siderean Software (semantic system), Grokker (content processing), and Oracle’s SES10g (the secure enterprise search system praised by Martin Butler and used by Boeing of 787 fame). Newspapers? I have lost count of the shut downs. Magazines? Some growth but I just see a thinning selection at the local airport newsstand and at my trinket shops. Ooops. I meant Barnes & Noble and Border’s. Both outfits have more games, notebooks, and cards than real books. Media, particularly mainstream media, is under some stress.
I read, therefore, with considerable interest Daily Finance’s “Time Warner CEO: Well Still Own Time Inc. in Five Years.” The person who made the statement is Jeffrey Bewkes. Daily Finance links to an Atlantic Monthly story and the Time chairman and CEO was apparently in the fortune telling business for a short time.
I don’t recall seeing Mr. Bewkes’s name on the list of big winners at either this year’s Kentucky Derby or any other gambling venue’s Hall of Fame. I don’t recall his being listed as the top stock picker in the Wall Street Journal’s round up last year. In fact, I don’t know much about Mr. Bewkes’s predictive expertise.
My hunch is that if – and this is a big if – could tell the future, he might be in another line of business; for instance, buying islands, building palatial homes, and sitting on the beach. Prediction can be a lucrative business. Maybe he has these possessions and is banned for life from the roulette wheels at casinos worldwide.
I doubt that, however.
The notion that a prediction made today in 2009 will be accurate in – what is it? – 2014 strikes me as pretty wild and crazy. BearStearns was not for sale but as I recall it sold over a weekend. Time Warner like other companies is going to have to find ways to reduce costs and increase revenues. That’s a difficult job. A failure such as losing control of traditional revenue streams can prove catastrophic.
My hunch is that Time in five years has a less than 50 –50 shot at owning Time Inc. Media companies are like snow on the side of a mountain in Chamonix. One perturbation and the snow rushes down. Wait. Maybe 40 – 60 now that I visualize an avalanche.
Stephen Arnold, October 3, 2009
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