Time Life: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 18:30, 16 May 2010
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Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales.
Time-Life was founded in 1961 as the book division of Time Inc. It took its name from Time Inc.'s cornerstone magazines, Time and Life, but remained independent of both. During 1966, Time Life combined its book offerings with music collections (two to five records) and packaged them as a sturdy box set. Throughout the '70s and '80s, the selection of books, music and videos grew and was diversified into more genres. When record labels stopped producing vinyl albums in 1990, Time Life switched to CD only.
At the end of 2003 Time Life was acquired by Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C. and ZelnickMedia Corporation to become part of Direct Holdings Worldwide L.L.C. Direct Holdings Americas Inc. operates as a leader in the sale of music and video products under the Time Life brand.
Since 2003, Direct Holdings US Corp is the legal name of Time Life, and is no longer owned by its former parent Time Warner. In March 2007, Ripplewood led a group that took The Reader's Digest Association private and has since put Time Life as a division of RDA.
The British television company, Time Life Television was a producer of BBC programs, which was renamed Lionheart Television in 1982.
Book series
The Time Life company was founded by Time, Incorporated in 1961, as a book marketing division. It takes its name from Time and Life magazines, two of the most popular weeklies of the era. It was based in the Time Life building in Rockefeller Center.
Time Life gained fame as a seller of book series that would be mailed to households in monthly installments. Several of these book series garnered substantial critical acclaim unusual for a mass-market mail order house.[citation needed] For example, the series Library of Photography of the early-1970s featured very high-quality duo-tone printing for its black-and-white reproductions in its original edition, and was of course able to draw on Life Magazine's vast archive of journalistic and art photographs from virtually every major photographer; Foods Of The World featured contributions by M.F.K. Fisher, James Beard, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne and many others; and The Good Cook series, edited by Richard Olney, featured contributions from Jeremiah Tower, Jane Grigson, Michel Lemonnier and many others. Other series of high regard covered nature and the sciences, as well as the history of world civilizations. The science books are interesting as ephemera of their time. The content of these series was more or less encyclopedic, providing the basics of the subjects in the way it might be done in a lecture aimed at the general public. There was also a series on contemporary life in various countries of the world. Some other series are much less highly regarded, especially the later output as the publisher moved away from soberly presented science and history towards sensationalism, pop-history, and DIY-themed books. The books, whatever their quality, are easy to find at low prices on the used-book market, due to their being published in the millions of copies. (Some of the items in this list may also be single books not in a series, but followed the same types of themes as the book series.)
- The American Wilderness[1]
- The Art of Sewing[1]
- A Child's First Library Of Learning, a series of educational books by Time–Life
- Classics of the Old West[1] (not the same as "The Old West")
- Collector's Library of the Civil War[1]
- The Emergence of Man[1]
- Enchanted World Series, a best-selling Time–Life series, 21 volumes
- The Encyclopedia of Collectibles[1]
- The Epic of Flight[1]
- Family Library ("How Things Work in your Home", "The Time-Life Book of the Family Car", "The Time-Life Family Legal Guide", and "The Time-Life Book of Family Finance")[1]
- Foods of the World[1]
- The Good Cook[1]
- Great Ages of Man—history of each of the major civilizations of human history[1]
- The Great Cities[1]
- Home Repair and Improvement[1]
- Human Behavior[1]
- Library of Health[1]
- Library of Nations
- The LIFE History of the United States[1]
- LIFE Library of Photography[1]
- LIFE Nature Library, 25 volumes[1]
- LIFE Science Library, 26 volumes[1]
- LIFE World Library[1]
- Mysteries of the Unknown, a best-selling Time–Life series, 33 volumes
- The Old West[1]
- Planet Earth Series[1]
- The Seafarers Series[1]
- This Fabulous Century[1]
- Time Frame—A survey of history by time periods instead of by civilization
- Time–Life Library of America[1]
- Time–Life Library of Art[1]
- The Time–Life Library of Boating[1]
- The Time–Life Library of Gardening[1]
- Time Life Library of Curious and Unusual Facts
- Time Reading Program[1]
- Understanding Computers
- Voyage Through the Universe—series on Astronomy
- Wild, Wild World of Animals
- The World's Wild Places[1]
- Wings of War, 26 Volumes
- World War II, 31 volumes
Time Life no longer publishes books. The book division was closed down in 2003. The likely cause is that production and printing costs reached the point where people were unwilling to purchase them, even directly from the publisher.[original research?] Time Inc./Time Warner, however, continues to publish similar material through Time Inc. Home Entertainment.
Music
Time Life added music in 1962, selling box sets and collections through Time Life Records, eventually advertising these collections through infomercials (including Country Music Explosion and Ultimate Rock Ballads), which often air in the early morning (3 am to 6 am). A few of these collections were not just music, but included books with the records as well, and some were not music at all, but informational, educational, or "audio documentaries", which tended to follow the themes of the Time–Life Books series. When Time merged with Warner Communications in 1989, the label became a Time Warner division. Warner Music Group, which grouped all of Time-Warner's music companies (save for New Line Records, which was merely distributed by WMG), was sold to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. in late 2003.
A key selling point of these collections is that each track was digitally transferred to CD using the original master recordings, as opposed to being "re-records" whereby only an old phonograph record, or an old radio copy is used for the transfer.
The following list shows many of the collections the company has released, but is by no means exhaustive.
- AM Gold (discontinued)
- Billboard #1 Hits of the 70's
- Body and Soul
- Classic Bluegrass (discontinued)
- Classic Country
- Classic Love Songs of the 60's
- Classic Rock (discontinued)
- Classic Rhythm and Blues
- Classic Soft Rock
- Classic Soul Ballads
- Classic Love Songs of Rock N' Roll (discontinued)
- Contemporary Country
- Country Music Explosion
- Country USA (discontinued)
- Disco Fever
- 80's Music Explosion
- The Fabulous Fifties
- Flower Power
- Folk Years (discontinued)
- Giants of Jazz (discontinued)
- Great American Songbook
- Golden Age of Country
- Hard & Heavy
- It All Started with Doo Wop
- Lifetime of Country Romance
- Lifetime of Romance (discontinued)
- Legends: The Ultimate Rock (discontinued)
- Living the Blues (http://www.bsnpubs.com/warner/time-life/31livingblues/31livingblues.html)
- Magic of Love
- Malt Shop Memories
- Midnight Soul
- The Motown Collection
- Opry Video Classics
- Oldies But Goodies
- Pop Memories of the 60's
- Prom Night
- Rock N' Roll Era (discontinued)
- Rock N' Roll: Legendary Years (discontinued)
- Romancing the 70's
- Classic Soul Ballads
- 70's Music Explosion
- Singers & Songwriters
- 60's Gold (discontinued)
- Songs 4 Ever (discontinued)
- Soul Story
- Sounds of the Seventies (discontinued)
- Sounds of the Eighties (discontinued)
- Sounds of the Nineties (discontinued)
- Superstars of Country
- Superstars of the 80's
- Sweet Soul of the 70's
- The Rock Collection (discontinued)
- To The Moon, a 6-record set: a documentary with accompanying book about the early space program, the space race, the missions to the moon and the first moon landing, published soon after Apollo 11 completed its mission to the moon. (discontinued)
- Ultimate Seventies (discontinued)
- Ultimate Love Songs
- Ultimate Rock Ballads
- Uptown Saturday Night
- Your Hit Parade (discontinued)
Controversy
In recent years, the company has been subject to bad press due to questionable billing practices.[citation needed] Some customers claim that they have been tricked into purchasing multiple CDs from Time Life. Buyers, wishing to purchase single CDs, do not fully understand that they are entering into "Continuity Programs," despite the promotional advertisements stating they will be introduced into a series of CDs shipped "every few weeks," automatically billing the credit card. Critics contend that the company's disclosure about automatic follow-up orders is intentionally and deceptively placed in areas where it is unlikely to be read. Time Life does, however, back every product with a 30 day money-back guarantee and the customer's account will be refunded upon receipt of the returned item. As a benefit, customers can call customer service to cancel at any time, whereas services such as BMG Music Service and Columbia House (which have since merged) require the customer to buy a certain number of CDs before they can cancel.
See also
- FreeRice, a program sponsored by Time Life.
- List of record labels
