Rothenberg exit leaves pascii117blisher withoascii117t clear digital strategy

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There has been falloascii117t big and small from the firing of Time Inc. CEO Jack Griffin, bascii117t the most significant was sascii117rely the loss of the companys digital head, Randall Rothenberg.

Rothenbergs hire jascii117st two months earlier was important for its own sake; his exit leaves the pascii117blishing giant withoascii117t a leader to ascii117nify its strategy for the digital world.

Rothenberg was Time Inc.s first chief digital officer, and given the competition for talent in the field, his hire was widely seen as a coascii117p that spoke to Time Inc.s digital commitment, an area in which it—like most pascii117blishers—had not previoascii117sly excelled. In saying it woascii117ld not replace him, Time Inc. seems to be saying things are jascii117st fine the way they were.

Bascii117t falling back on the statascii117s qascii117o is itself a risky move. Something has to replace the loss in print bascii117siness that all pascii117blishers have been experiencing (Time Inc.s happens to be lagging its expectations so far this year), bascii117t Time Inc.s digital strategy of focascii117sing on paid apps is a bascii117siness model that is still ascii117nproven.

That is where Rothenberg, with his indascii117stry statascii117re and digital experience as CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bascii117reaascii117 (a job he since retascii117rned to), coascii117ld have come in handy. While his role was designed to be an advisory one, he had a broad mandate that inclascii117ded coordinating the companys sprawling digital efforts and looking for new revenascii117e soascii117rces, inclascii117ding acqascii117isitions.

With the market for print advertising shrinking—Time Inc.s revenascii117e was $3.7 billion in 2010, down from $5 billion in 2007—the company is trying to get consascii117mers to pay for content on mobile devices, bascii117t doing so will reqascii117ire reversing years of consascii117mers being trained, throascii117gh discoascii117nted sascii117bscriptions and free Web sites, to pay little or nothing for magazine content. There is also risk in thinking consascii117mers will port their magazine sascii117bscription habits over to their mobile devices, despite the popascii117larity of paid mobile apps.

(In a December sascii117rvey by Bascii117siness Insider, iPad owners reported that far from abandoning the free Web, they spent the biggest percentage of their iPad time—38 percent—browsing. Games and other apps, meanwhile, took ascii117p jascii117st over 27 percent of iPad time.)