Time Inc’s Business Websites To Merge With CNNMoney.com

DEVELOPING: Another in the saga of Time Inc’s websites and its restructuring (I’m losing count now) Time Warner is merging four of its business focused magazine websites into one…three of those are from the Time Inc stable and one from Turner-TimeInc joint venture. The sites being merged are CNNMoney.com, Fortune.com, FSB.com and Business2.com and re-launched in January 2006 as a single website at CNNMoney.com.

Vivek Shah, the GM of the Fortune/Money group within the company, will oversee all aspects of the new website’s business operations. CNNMoney.com’s Executive Editor and VP Chris Peacock will continue to oversee site programming and editorial content.

Still unclear (but we’re finding out): Will the premium content on B2.0 and Fortune go open now? Will AOL still handle the ad sales?

More later…

Staci adds: I wonder if this might all have occurred sooner if it hadn’t taken so long to kill off CNNfn. CNN’s financial news net was supposed to shift to CNN Money and launch as a standalone network back in 2001. Those plans were put off numerous times during post-9/11 financial confusion, leaving the newly combined, relaunched CNNMoney.com without the expected corresponding network. Eventually, the stand-alone network idea dissipated and the plug finally was pulled on CNNfn late last year. CNN highlights business news on the air, even sending business reporters to cover Hurricane Katrina and featuring Fortune’s Andy Serwer as a correspondent and host. But the fragmented internet presence for business coverage sent mixed signals and divided the power a well-done, consolidated Time, Inc. biz site could have online, especially important given the noise about a Fox biz net and Fox Interactive’s focus on upgrading web presence.

This will only work if Time Inc. can find a way to create multiple entry points for users seeking very different kinds of financial news coverage — and can make the most of its video potential through VOD. It won’t work as a subscription walled garden; that doesn’t rule out some unique sub-only perks like newsletters, news alerts, etc. but anything that shuts off access to core news will send users elsewhere.

Related:

More on CNNfn Closing: Exploring Online VOD Options

Time Inc To Launch Two Online Titles Before Print Version

Restructuring At Time Inc

AOL Time Warner Pulls Free Net Magazines

Comments have been disabled for this post