RD Canadian Best Health launch encourages launch of U.S. version, Best You

After a successful "out of town tryout", Reader's Digest intends to launch Best You, a health title in the U.S. in January, according to an item in MediaDaily News. It's modelled on Best Health, launched in March by Reader's Digest Magazine Canada with 100,000 circulation.

On February 24, RD also plans to launch Fresh Home, a do-it-yourself title targetted at young, married adults.

Both will launch with 300,000 distribution on newsstands and a newsstand cover price of $4.99.

Both new mags will contend with fierce competition in their content categories. Best You launches just three months after two new newspaper-distributed magazines covering the same topics: Spry, from the Publishing Group of America, and HealthyStyle, from competitor Parade. On the home improvement front, most shelter titles are down in the first half of 2008, with 17 out of 25 seeing ad pages drop, for an overall average decline of 5%.