Meredith merges Cooking Light with EatingWell, cuts jobs

Meredith is merging Cooking Light magazine with EatingWell to create the largest subscription magazine in the epicurean category under the EatingWell brand, the company announced. The new circulation rate base will total 1.775 million, a nearly 80 percent increase from EatingWell’s current rate base of 1 million, the company says.

Des Moines-based Meredith will launch a new Cooking Light special interest newsstand-only title in 2019 that will be published six times per year. The new EatingWell will launch with the January/February 2019 issue and will be published 10 times per year.

EatingWell.com and CookingLight.com will continue to operate as separate destinations. Branded businesses for both Cooking Light and EatingWell, including licensing, bookazines, cookbooks and the Cooking Light Diet, will continue to operate under their current names.

With the move, the company instituted cuts, with around 200 jobs eliminated, according to the New York Post. In addition to editorial, jobs were cut in production, IT, finance, consumer revenue, digital, and advertising operations.

“Combining the powerful EatingWell and Cooking Light magazines will strengthen our editorial product while providing advertisers with access to this passionate group of consumers seeking a healthier lifestyle,” said Carey Witmer, group publisher of the Meredith Food Group.

Witmer and EatingWell Publisher Tiffany Ehasz will manage advertising revenue for the new EatingWell. The editorial team for EatingWell will remain based in Vermont, led by Editor-in-Chief Jessie Price. The Birmingham, Alabama, facility will go on serving as a Meredith hub for food-related content creation and distribution across platforms.

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