Reader's Digest Association rebrands as Trusted Media Brands

Reader's Digest Association has dropped the name of its most famous publication to become Trusted Media Brands Inc., a title that the company feels better reflects the business it's in and its future. A story in AdAge reports that the idea is to battle the common assumption that this is principally a one-title publishers when, in fact, things have changed dramatically in the last few years in the privately held company has relied more on publishing a wide range of titles and sites such as Taste of Home, Country Woman, Birds & Blooms, Taste and The Family Handyman.

"It's not at all about distancing us from Reader's Digest," said [Bonnie] Kintzer [CEO]. "It's about having a name of a company that actually states who you are. At the end of the day, 99% of people will think that the one brand Reader's Digest Association has is Reader's Digest." 

Today there are 52 websites at the company, which says unique monthly visits have grown 70% over the past 24 months. Mobile uniques are also up 186%, according to the company. Its properties as a whole draw 53 million uniques, have 40 million social media fans and 40 million print readers, according to the company. In addition, there's little overlap -- around 3% or 4% -- between print and online readers, the company says.

The U.S. paid-and-verified circulation of RDA titles averaged 8.9 million and Reader's Digest itself averaged 2.7 million in the first 6 months of the year, according to data released by the Alliance for Audited Media. The English Canadian edition of Reader's Digest reports an average issue audience (print and online) of 3,909,000; the French edition Sélection du Reader's Digest 647,000, according to the spring release of Print Measurement Bureau data.

At one point in the mid-1970s RD had a circulation of 17 million, second only to TV Guide as the most-read publication.