J. Richard Munroe, who as chairman and chief executive of Time Inc. navigated the company from its home in magazine publishing through the turbulent media seas of the 1980s and, eventually, its landmark purchase of Warner Communications in 1989, creating the largest company in the world. Media Corp., died Aug. 11 in Naples, Fla. He was 93 years old.
His son Mack said his cause of death, at a hospice, was melanoma.
When Henry R. When Luce, the powerful founder of Time Inc., died in 1967, he wanted his company to remain “primarily a journalistic enterprise” with a stable of high-profile magazines including Time, Life, Fortune and Sports. Illustrated — and book-publishing arm.
By the time Mr. Munro took over as president and chief executive in 1980, things had changed significantly. Time Inc. was in the process of changing its foundations in journalism and publishing, including a more diverse set of media offerings, including HBO. A subscription cable channel, which started operating in 1972.
But the transition was far from over, and Mr. Munro, who had pledged to serve as president and chief executive for a decade, was committed to completing it, no matter how painful the process. He restructured the company’s publishing division, Time-Life Books, resulting in a 25 percent budget reduction. He sold the company’s forest products division, which makes paper and cardboard boxes.
He tried several new magazine titles, including TV-Cable Week, a TV guide for cable television, which was beginning to grow in popularity. But they bombarded; TV-cable week time cost about $40 million and almost cost Mr. Munro his job.
He survived because he continued to command the respect of stockholders, employees, and Time’s board of directors. But that didn’t solve a bigger problem: Time had long been a relatively small, mission-focused company, and those qualities, in the emerging age of corporate raiders, made it a prime target for a hostile takeover, which might see Mr. Luce’s structure was cut up and sold for parts.
Including Mr. Munro and his deputies Gerald M. LevineWarner Communications spent two years looking for a merger partner before settling on Steven Ross-led Warner Communications. The merger, Mr. Munro said, would preserve the organizational integrity of the new company, almost entirely debt-free, to compete with a generation of giant new European media companies.
“We don’t need to lay off anyone, we don’t need to sell anything and we don’t need to borrow to accomplish this,” he told The New York Times In March 1989, a few years after he added chairman to his list of titles. “It gives us a very large vault – and we have plans to use it.”
But a few weeks after Mr. Munro and Mr. Ross announced the merger through a stock swap, Paramount Communications shocked the markets by offering to buy Time at a significant markup.
Mr Munro was sullen – “We will strike back,” he told the Times – and scrambled for a response. He and Mr. Ross restructured the deal as a friendly takeover, with Time buying Warner with the help of a large bank loan. The resulting company, now saddled with debt, will have a much bigger target.
Some Time board members protested and Paramount sued to block the deal. Mr. Munro beat them all. In July 1989, hours after a judge ruled in their favor, Time and Warner moved forward with the creation of Time Warner, ushering in a new era of media conglomerates.
John Richard Munro was born on January 26, 1931 in Syracuse, NY. His parents, Donald and Virginia (Danforth) Monroe, divorced when he was about 5 years old. His father, a veteran of World War I, was sickened by German gas. Attacked and never fully recovered. He ran a service station in the Syracuse suburb of Camillus. After the divorce, her mother worked various jobs, including selling furniture and tending bar.
After graduating from high school, Mr. Munro enlisted in the Marines. He served two years as a rifle instructor, then spent a year fighting in the Korean War. He received the Purple Heart three times.
He received a BA in English from Colgate University in 1957. He wanted to become a high school principal, and he later did graduate work in education at Columbia University and New York University’s Teachers College.
Immediately after graduation, he took a job at Time Inc. His motivation was mostly financial—he had bills to pay—but he fell in love with the company, and worked there until he retired.
He worked in advertising sales at Time magazine and then at Sports Illustrated, where he climbed the leadership ladder during the 1960s and became publisher in the early 70s.
He then shifted to the company’s growing video division, which was home to HBO. The subscription-cable service got off to a slow start but flourished under Mr. Munro, and by the early 1980s Time’s network of cable channels (which included Cinemax) generated most of its profits.
At the beginning of his career, Mr. Munro met Carol Keeney, the secretary of one of his bosses. They got married in 1963.
In addition to their son Mack, she also survives him, as do two other sons, John and Doug; six grandchildren; a granddaughter; and his brother, Bill.
Mr. Munro retired from Time Inc. in 1990 after a decade as chief executive and president. He later served on several corporate and nonprofit boards.
He was also deeply involved in volunteer work around Naples in Southwest Florida. He tutored through Head Start, advised on college scholarship selection, and mentored students who wished to attend college.
that work, he told the Naples Daily News in 2017“It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”
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