Time Life
Time Life, is an American company formerly known for its production company and direct marketer conglomerate known for selling books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. The current focus of the group is music, video, and entertainment experiences (such as the StarVista cruises) as the Time Life book division closed in 2001. Its products have been sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales. Current operations are focused in the US and Canada with limited retail distribution overseas.
Not to be confused with Time Warner.Company type
1961
Time Inc. (1961–1990)
Time-Warner (1990–2001)
AOL Time Warner (2001–2003)
Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C. (2003–2007)
ZelnickMedia (2003–2007)
Reader's Digest Association (2007–2013)
Mosaic Media Investment Partners (2013–present)
60 (as of 2015)
timelife
Overview[edit]
Time Life was founded in 1961 as the book marketing division of Time Inc.. It took its name from Time Inc.'s magazines, Time and Life, but remained independent from both. Starting in 1967, Time Life combined its book offerings with music collections (two to five records) and packaged them as a sturdy box set. After Walter Wanger's death in 1968, its Time Life Films subsidiary also acquired his production company Walter Wanger Productions and many of its films. When record labels were no longer producing vinyl albums in 1990, Time Life transitioned to CD. In the mid-1990s, Time Life acquired Heartland Music, with the Heartland Music label then appearing as a brand. This company was subsequently sold off and is no longer associated with Time Life.
On December 31, 2003 Time Life was sold by Time Warner to a group of private investors including Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C. and ZelnickMedia for an undisclosed price, becoming part of a holding company named Direct Holdings Worldwide L.L.C.[1][2] With that transaction, Direct Holdings US Corp became the legal name of Time Life, though Time Life was still used as a brand name. A disclaimer on the copyright stated that it is "not affiliated with Time Warner Inc. or Time Inc.," which owns the Time and Life magazines, which this company name came from. Direct Holdngs sells music and video products under the Time Life brand. In March 2007, Ripplewood led a group that took the Reader's Digest Association (RDA) private and made Time Life a division of RDA.[3]
In addition to the company's film and music core activities, it was also the holding company of television and radio combo stations. Stations the company owned were KLZ-TV-AM-FM in Denver, WFBM-TV-AM-FM in Indianapolis, WOOD-TV-AM in Grand Rapids, Michigan, KERO-TV in Bakersfield, California, and KOGO-TV-AM-FM in San Diego, many of which were sold to McGraw-Hill in 1972; however, Time Life kept WOOD-TV, which became WOTV after the sale of the other stations, and remained owned by the company until 1984. It was also the U.S. television distributor of programmes from the BBC in the United Kingdom until Lionheart Television took over in 1982. Time Life was based in the Time Life building in Rockefeller Center.
In 2013 Reader's Digest Association sold Time Life to Mosaic Media Investment Partners.[4]
In 2023, Time Life and its only official online retailer was shut down, followed by the closing of Direct Holdings in early 2024.
Time Life's video business has been growing quickly since 2000. Starting with documentaries including Growing Up Wild and the re-release of World at War, the company has more recently branched into nostalgic television shows. Time Life is able to leverage their music industry knowledge and contacts to release television shows previously held back because of expensive music rights clearances. Their collections are known for having extensive bonus features, liner notes and packaging. Television show releases from Time Life include:[13]