Following in the grand tradition of every other magazine in the past three months, Time Out New York is trying to scrounge up a little extra scratch to stay afloat, and will be auctioning off a portion of its stake for $40 million.

TONY investors say the magazine is still doing fine, and they are merely trying to get a return on their investment. Which would be believable if it wasn't 3 months to the day when the Time Out staff promised all their freelancers they'd be paid…in 90 days.

So now that TONY paid all their writers, they're in the red? Too bad the copy is one thing that's not expendable in the industry.