Time trying to time its release for the weekends

Jon Fine, the media blogger for BusinessWeek, provides a concise review of what’s wrong with Time Magazine’s latest rationale for moving to a Friday street date for the publication. Time’s justification for the shift in publishing schedule is, in theory, advertiser-driven:

“The new Friday on-sale date gives advertisers a tremendous opportunity to convey their messages to TIME’s 27 million readers before the weekend, when consumers do the large majority of purchasing.”

But as Fine points out, similar scheming for Time’s sister publication, Life, hasn’t borne any fruit.

Print media is writhing under pressure to drive down costs, increase ad pages and stay relevant with a media that can’t change once its made and isn’t timely under any circumstance. Mike Driehorst points out the very same problems in this post on the Newspaper Industry’s problems.

Your thoughts are welcome here – what should Time do?