From a New York Times obit by John Leland headlined “Tony Elliott, Accidental Tycoon Who Built the Time Out Empire, Dies at 73”:
Tony Elliott, who started the Time Out global publishing empire in his mother’s London kitchen in 1968 with a capital investment of 70 pounds and a simple idea — tell people where they can see the right movie or band, or find a haircut or a falafel — died on July 16 in London. . . .
From its first issue, in 1968 — a single poster-size sheet, folded four times, that functioned as a guide to the local counterculture — Mr. Elliott’s creation grew into a worldwide enterprise, with businesses in 327 cities and 58 countries, including close to 50 magazines devoted to particular cities. Its websites draw 63 million unique visitors per month, said Julio Bruno, chief executive officer of Time Out Group.
“His thing was, ‘I had one idea, but it was a good one,’” Ms. Elliott said.
Mr. Elliott, who left college to start the business, was an accidental tycoon whose idea arrived at a ripe moment — when the cultural map was shifting too quickly for the established news media to keep up, and people not in the know needed guidance from those who were. . . .
Through the hippie, punk and cyberculture eras, the magazines championed fringe theater, cheap eats, family activities and occasional politics. They were also among the first in the mainstream press to cover gay life, and an early column, Meet the Fuzz, listed forthcoming demonstrations and political activities. . . .
As the magazine expanded to other cities, starting with Time Out New York in 1995, it maintained the voice of a local insider, anticipating the internet deluge of information that was just around the corner.
“It was the last hurrah of that need,” said Cyndi Stivers, the first editor of Time Out New York, who helped start some of Time Out’s other city magazines. “You didn’t have the internet in your pocket, and there was not much on the web yet. When we launched, people were grateful.”
Anthony Michael Manton Elliott was born on Jan. 7, 1947, in Redding, England. . . .He attended Stowe School, then went to Keele University. . .. There he edited a student arts magazine called Unit, which ran features and interviews with Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Returning to London during a school break, he found that the local listings in the mainstream and alternative press were thin guides to all that was going on in Swinging London. He felt he could do better.
“In 1968, he came into the Black Dwarf, a radical magazine I was editing, and said he loved the paper, and why don’t we have a supplement that is essentially listings?” said Tariq Ali, a writer and historian who became a columnist at Time Out. “I burst out laughing.”
Mr. Elliott’s original name for the magazine, abandoned days before it went to press, was Where It’s At. Instead, he borrowed the name Time Out from a Dave Brubeck album. . . .
At the time, most publications’ event listings were simply rewritten news releases, presented dutifully. Mr. Elliott and his founding partner, Bob Harris, licensed his staff to be opinionated, funny and idiosyncratic. He demanded absolute consistency of format, typeface and style, “but you could say whatever you wanted,” Ms. Stivers said. . . .
In 2002, a grand old man of publishing, he lamented the sameness of new publications compared with the creative anarchy of the late 1960s, and despaired of the modern “cycle of building magazines round Prada and Levi’s ads.”. . .
In 2017, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
“He packed a lot into his short life,” Ms. Elliott said.
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John Leland, a Metro reporter, joined The Times in 2000. His most recent book is “Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old,” based on a Times series.
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