Hearst buys Rodale Inc. and its titles, including Men's Health, Prevention and Runner's World

Hearst has bought Rodale Inc. in a deal which is said to be less than $250 million. It's but one of a number of consolidations taking place in the industry.

Rodale publishes Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention, Rodale’s Organic Life, Runner’s World and Bicycling. It also includes Rodale Books and an international division with which Hearst already has a joint venture. 

Critical to the deal was the assumption by New York-based Hearst of $30 million in unfunded pension liability and losses from real estate deals and vendor contracts. The deal may therefore wind up amounting to $100 million or less. 

One source characterised the deal as a “stunning collapse” of Rodale. The collapse is indicative of a broader change in the magazine industry, as smaller publishers, such as Wenner Media, are now closing or selling off titles.

David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, said

“Maria Rodale has grown her family’s business into a peerless authority that reaches an enormous audience. Hearst and Rodale are already publishing partners around the world, including the U.K., the Netherlands and Japan, and we’ve seen first-hand how the content resonates. We are pleased to add them and all of Rodale’s brands to our vibrant and varied global portfolio, providing readers with dependable information and offering marketers unbeatable scale and a trustworthy environment in the increasingly important health and wellness space.”

Metropolitan Home being revived on a contingent basis by Hearst

Mavens of shelter magazines may be hugging themselves now that it has been announced that Metropolitan Home is being revived -- at least for now. Originally published by Hachette, it was closed in 2009 to much lamentation. It is now to be back on the newsstands this month under the imprimatur of Hearst magazines, which acquired it in 2011 along with other Hachette U.S. titles. According to an article in AdWeek:

The magazine’s relaunch follows the test-issue template set by other Hearst titles like HGTV and Dr. Oz. The Spring/Summer issue of Metropolitan Home will be released on April 11—70,000 copies will be sold on newsstands with another 45,000 going to subscribers of other Hearst magazines such as Elle Décor, Town & Country and Esquire—and, depending on reader and advertiser interest, more issues could follow.

Condé Nast and Hearst in talks about shared services

Two of the biggest players in the U.S. and international magazine industry -- Condé Nast and Hearst -- are apparently in talks to share services, at least in the U.S. This would see Hearst Magazine Publishing Services (HMPS) offering print and digital services to Condé Nast and third party publishers.

HMPS is an extension of the dominant fulfillment and data company CDS Global which operates as a separate entity from Hearst (and which advertises on this blog). Potential clients could have access to Hearst's digital asset management system as well as consumer marketing, consultation around content creation and advertising sales, procurement, production, Web site, app and e-edition development, financial management or subscription and fulfillment management.

According to a story in WWD, Hearst Magazines president David Carey has been in talks with incoming Condé Nast chief executive officer Bob Sauerberg about becoming a client. 

CDS already manages certain end-to-end outsourcing for 450 print and digital publishers, including such functions as order management, payment and customer service. Current clients include magazines from big publishers like Condé Nast and Rodale to smaller ones like August Home Publishing and Garden & Gun LLC.

Jane Francisco leaving Chatelaine to become EIC of Hearst's Good Housekeeping

The giant Hearst Corporation has announced that it has hired away Chatelaine editor-in-chief Jane Francisco to be editor-in-chief of one of its core titles,Good Housekeeping. Francisco replaces Rosemary Ellis who is leaving the company at the end of December.

Good Housekeeping is one of the original "seven sisters" women's magazines. It has an audience of 25 million each month and is iconically well-known for its Good Housekeeping Seal, bestowed on favoured advertisers by the Good Housekeeping Research Institute.

Francisco has been with Chatelaine since 2009 and what she has done with it since apparently counts big time with Hearst president David Carey.

“Jane is an incredibly versatile editor, leader and branding expert, with the experience and vision to build on the lively, friendly energy of the revamped Good Housekeeping,” Carey said. “We thank Rosemary for the work she has done stewarding this brand, one of the most respected in the media industry.”

Carey continued, “Chatelaine is the largest circulation women's magazine in Canada, and we've been highly impressed with how Jane executed a top-to-bottom modernization of the brand. We're thrilled to have her [Francisco] on the Hearst team, leading one of our core titles.”

Francisco, who refers to her new title as being with "the ultimate women's magazine". was editor-in-chief of Style at Home before going to Chatelaine. Prior to that, she was founding editor-in-chief of St. Joseph’s Media’s Wish from 2004 to 2008, and was appointed editorial director of the company’s Lifestyle Group in 2006, with additional responsibility for Gardening Life and Canadian Family. In 2001, Francisco was named launch editor-in-chief of the beauty and health-focused Glow, where she served until 2004.

The hustling of "native advertising"; new Hearst digital chief says it's a "natural evolution"

Occasionally, I find myself saying "what the heck does that mean?" and one of those times just occurred when reading an interview in Ad Age with Troy Young, the president at Hearst Magazines Digital Media* saying this about so-called 'native advertising':

There's a lot to come on the native side, and I'm glad the market is rallying around the idea, but really it's a natural evolution of doing a couple of things: Making the advertising fit more elegantly in the content experience, and making it more interesting and removing the friction from consuming it, which was always the problem with legacy advertising experience.

Now it's about putting something back in for the user. Give them value or you're dead. It's a natural evolution. I think it's all good and every publishing company is going to have to deal with it.

Native advertising is apparently seen as a natural evolution of a thing rather than the mere application of a rebranding gloss to something that has long been with us; advertorial, or advertising that masquerades as editorial content. Apparently, too, there was perceived to be a friction present when reading advertising in traditional formats (say, in the pages of a Hearst magazine), now to be lubricated away by making advertising more interesting and integrating it more seamlessly with editorial content. This new, elegant and apparently, better kind of advertising (also contains lanolin) will give readers more value, by the mere act of making ads look more like editorial.

[*Another thing I found out when reading the interview was the Young got his start  in the '90s at Montreal Mirror.] 

Speculation starts about Canadianized editions of Hearst magazines

It was probably inevitable that the recent takeover by Hearst Corporation of 49% of the joint venture with Transcontinental Media producing Elle Canada and Elle Quebec would provoke speculation about similar arrangements with other big Hearst titles. And so it has with an item on the Huffington Post by Marc Weisblott though it contains little that would indicate we'll see Canadian editions of Cosmopolitan, Esquire or Car & Driver anytime soon. In fact American "spill" into the Canadian market has been demonstrated to be in long-term decline, according to Magazines Canada.

Hearst set to announce $900 million deal for Lagardere portfolio

Hearst Publishing is expected to announce as early as Monday that it is paying French publishing house Lagardere $900 million for its portfolio of international magazines, according to a story in the New York Post.

Lagardere, whose US unit Hachette Filipacchi publishes such titles as Elle, Woman’s Day and Car and Driver, and Hearst, publisher of Cosmopolitan and Esquire, are expected to announce the deal as early as Monday, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

The deal would make Hearst the clear front-runner in the international magazine business, and close the gap on US titan Time Inc.

Hearst and Lagardere announced on New Year’s Eve they had entered an exclusive negotiating period.

It would make Hearst the landlord, so to speak, for the licensing arrangement that Tanscontinental Media has to publish Elle Quebec and Elle Canada.

Hearst Magazines were the clear ad page comeback champs in 2010

Hearst Magazines is the leader among the big 5 group publishers in the U.S. in terms of ad page gain in 2010, compared with 2009. The data was compiled by the industry publication min online from publisher's own information.  Hearst showed a 10% gain year-over-year, followed closely by Conde Nast with 7%. All the major groups suffered significant, recession-driven sales declines in 2009.