American Media Inc Unloads Shape and Fit Pregnancy to Meredith Corp, Layoffs Coming

Meredith Corp which has been longing to hook up with Time Inc, has settled on buying Shape and Fit Pregnancy magazine from tabloid king American Media Inc for now. No word on how much money changed hands but some layoffs are expected. Here is the email sent out to employees this morning.

[post_ad] 

TO:                All Meredith Employees

FROM:          Tom Harty, President, National Media Group

DATE:           January 28, 2015

RE:                Acquisition of Shape Brand

We are excited to share with you news that we have reached an agreement to acquire Shape magazine, along with the digital assets of the Shape, Natural Health and Fit Pregnancy brands, from American Media Inc. 

This acquisition will further expand our leadership in the women’s active lifestyle, health and wellness, and parenting categories across multiple media channels. In addition, it will increase our reach to over 60 percent of American millennial women (23 million), creating an unmatched opportunity to connect marketers with this highly-valued audience on many platforms.

As part of today’s acquisition, we will be combining Shape and Fitness magazines to create a new Shapemagazine with a rate base of 2.5 million, the largest in the category.  The first issue of the new Shape magazine under Meredith operation will be the May 2015 issue.

Both Shape and Fitness will maintain their independent digital presences. In addition, the digital brands and related assets of Fit Pregnancy and Natural Health will become part of our digital network of brands aligning with our Meredith Parents Network and Eating Well, respectively. 

This is the latest in a series of acquisitions and product launches we have executed in recent years to grow our portfolio and strengthen our leadership position in reaching women at all of the key adult life stages. These have included:

• Signing a 10-year licensing agreement with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to acquire rights toMartha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Weddings magazines, and their related digital assets.
• Acquisitions and expansions of popular brands such as Eating Well, Family Fun, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Parenting, and Baby Talk brands.
• Launching Allrecipes magazine, which recently increased its rate base to 1.1 million after an initial launch of 500,000.
• Acquiring Selectable Media and mywedding.com, further deepening Meredith Digital’s media assets, leadership, and capabilities.

These acquisitions and new products generate meaningful incremental revenue growth and create new opportunities for career growth in the process. These actions are key for Meredith to thrive and prosper as a strong and independent media company.

Thank you for your continued hard work and support. We are looking forward to building on our great momentum in the marketplace in the year ahead.

[full_width]