By Peter Preston

The grand American magazine house has been sold to a rival, with assistance from the Koch brothers, having never really committed to a digital future.

For many decades, Time was the world’s biggest, most influential news magazine. A name to conjure with. Its person of the year edition still makes US presidents drool (though only if they’re called Trump). But see how such strength drains away as Meredith – a more mundane company from Des Moines, Iowa, much assisted by a $650m investment from the Koch brothers, the rightest of the right – steps in to acquire it. See how the mighty are falling.

There’s a residual package here worth a $2.8bn deal, to be sure. Some of the US titles – Sports Illustrated, People – remain top of their respective shops. Time itself may be slipping from 4.5 million copies week down towards the 3 million mark, but it’s still a force to be reckoned with. And the empire’s British wing – Horse & Hound, Woman’s Own, Ideal Home, Angler’s Mail et al – seems suitably eclectic.

What’s gone wrong then? Why is Time Inc passing into the midwestern maw, far from the metropolitan bustle and glamour of the Big Apple? And what happens next?

Two great failures of the last few years loom insistently. One, summed up by Rick Stengel, once a respected editorial team leader, has a familiar ring. “Every year for seven years when I was editor, I asked for money for investment in digital and new media and every year I was turned down. We never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Another is the context that magazines of Time’s type have to work in. When Henry Luce founded Time in 1923, there was, of course, no TV, no digital, no expanded coverage via satellite printing. America was a big country studded with big-city newspapers that dominated their states and regions. Therefore a news magazine that served the whole country (and key capitals abroad) had a powerful pull. Time, once a week, gave you politics, science and the arts on a designer plate. It put the United States together.

That formula doesn’t really work any longer in an era of instant digital news. Time has to become more reflective and informative. But there, at the top end, lies Economist territory, a success story of transition from print to web; and Time hasn’t quite made the leap yet. Does it peddle news, or analysis? Does it ooze expertise, or let gossip and personalities take their turn? Does being American, reflecting American attitudes and policies, confer instant authority?

You can see attempts to answer some of those difficult questions through the slipping sales and diminishing revenues – six slithering quarters in succession currently – that have made Time vulnerable to a takeover. Print advertising is 19% down year-on-year, newsstand sales down 20%. You can also see the tragedy behind Stengel’s criticisms.

Digital meant huge investment and a complete reassessment of Time’s place in the publishing world (just like People’s place in a clamorous celebrity market, with TV channels abounding). No one stumped up for such visions of profound change. Time’s managers squeezed and trimmed – and let inertia underpin decline.

What’s next from Meredith? Probably more of the same as, one by one, titles are sold off or merged. There’s always a certain amount of cash to be made on slippery slopes, as costs are carved back and overheads combined. There’s always the lure for very rich men of seeming to wield editorial power. Just watch the Kochs.

New hope and new beginnings don’t come this way, though. Who’s the new man of the year for front-cover treatment? Not, alas, Rich Battista, president of the board as Time ran out.