Magazine Media Giant Bolsters TV Holdings

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Des Moines-based Meredith Corp. has added to its stable of tv stations by acquiring two stations from Gannett Co. for $407 million, mediabistro.com FishbowlNY reported.

Meredith adds Top 25 Market St. Louis' KMOV-TV and KASW-TV in Phoenix to its holdings of 12 television stations and approximate 30 magazines with the purchase, which is expected to be finalized during the first quarter of 2014 pending FCC approval. The media conglomerate already owns Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO-TV.

Spring Cleaning: Time Warner Tossing Magazines into Separate Unit

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Following a break-off in talks with the Meredith Corp., Time Warner will concentrate on its film and cable tv units and separate its financially beleaguered Time, Inc. magazine unit into a separate entity, the New York Times reported this week.

Reportedly, talks between the two media conglomerates concerning creation of a company that would have combined many of Time, Inc.'s stable of 23 magazines with Meredith's periodicals collapsed because the two sides couldn't agree on the fate of Time, Inc.'s London-based IPC Media and over Meredith's lukewarm interest in Time's flagship magazines, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Time and Money, according to the Times article.

Arithmetic is the motivation for the Time Warner decision, as in the Fourth Quarter of 2012, Time, Inc. suffered a 7 percent loss in revenue to $967 million, while over the same period, Time Warner's cable holdings gained 5 percent in revenue to $3.67 billion. Time, Inc., the nation's largest magazine publisher, said last month it would pare its 8,000-member workforce by 6 percent (see "TUOL" post 1/31/13).

Declining advertising revenues and shrinking circulation have plagued the magazine industry overall, as this ever-modest blog first reported rumblings by Time Warner about disgorging its red-ink pumping magazine units four years ago (see "TUOL" post 9/28/09).

Meredith Corp. Pulls Plug on ReadyMade Magazine

Image via WikipediaThe Des Moines Register reports today that Des-Moines-based media conglomerate Meredith Corp. will trim 75 jobs company-wide and shutter its environment-friendly lifestyle periodical, ReadyMade Magazine, which it acquired in 2006.

Meredith blamed a weak home advertising market and sagging ad revenues for its decision to end ReadyMade. The media company will take a $10 million charge against its fiscal 2011 4th Quarter earnings related to its staff cutbacks and ceasing publication of ReadyMade.

Meredith Corp. publishes roughly 30 periodicals, ranging from Better Homes and Gardens and Family Circle to Diabetic Living and Wood, and owns about a dozen tv stations, including WGCL-TV in Atlanta and WFSB-TV in Hartford.