Time Inc. buys QSP school plan sub sales operation from Reader's Digest

It's always been peculiar that part of the sale of magazine subscriptions relies -- as newspaper routes used to -- on the labour of children. Although it's not quite as important as it once was, the "school plan" method of having kids flog magazines door-to-door for commission is still big business. This is certainly demonstrated by the decision of Time Inc. to pay $110 million to buy QSP from Reader's Digest Assocation Inc. (now owned by Ripplewood Holdings).

Paidcontent.org reports that Time Inc believes fundraising is a growth area for subscriptions and envisions benefits to operating QSP’s large direct-selling force in North America.

Time is really buying back something it used to own; QSP was started in 1963 as a joint venture between RDA and Time Inc.RDA bought Time Inc.’s share in 1971. QSP went on to become one of the largest fundraising companies in North America and says over the years it has helped school kids raise more than $3 billion.

Time Inc is slated to launch its online magazine megastore Maghound by next month, so there are some synergy possibilities there. Then of course it owns Synapse, the big magazine subscription marketing business, so there are some obvious synergies there.

While Time Inc. may see school plans as a growth area, most everybody else in the industry sees it as a sunset sector. However, for Reader's Digest, the deal makes sense as its new owners pare away non-core business.