• by Sara Guaglione , July 31, 2017

Meredith Corporation’s total advertising revenue grew 2% to $934 million across the company in the fiscal 2017 year, according to its latest earnings report.

Unlike most companies, Meredith’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30, meaning its fiscal 2017 fourth quarter and full year ended June 30. Its fiscal 2018 year started July 1.   

Total company revenues grew 4% to $1.7 billion for fiscal 2017.

"We delivered record revenue and profit in fiscal 2017, as we continue to aggressively execute our multiplatform growth strategies, including rapid expansion of our highly profitable digital activities," stated Meredith chairman and CEO Stephen M. Lacy.  

Meredith’s Corp.’s total digital advertising revenue across the company grew 20%.

Meredith Corp. is broken out into two major divisions: the Local Media Group, with includes 17 television stations, and the National Media Group, which contains the magazines and reaches more than 110 million American women every month, including over 70% of U.S. millennial women.

National Media Group’s digital advertising increased more than 20% and represented over 30% of its total advertising in its fiscal 2017 year, offsetting declines in print advertising, according to Meredith president and COO Tom Harty.

This growth was “led by highly profitable native, engagement-based video and programmatic advertising, along with shopper marketing,” according to the company.

Total advertising revenues for the National Media Group were not as impressive as Meredith's overall ad revenue. It made $520 million in fiscal 2017, down 1%, but up slightly when excluding More and Siempre Mujer magazines, which Meredith shuttered by fiscal 2017. That means it did not have its ad and circulation revenues. (Siempre Mujer still lives online.)

In 2017, Meredith launched The Magnolia Journal, a quarterly lifestyle magazine produced in collaboration with Joanna and Chip Gaines, the stars of the HGTV show “Fixer Upper.” It is the publisher’s strongest-selling newsstand title and is currently selling more than 900,000 copies of each issue.

"We expanded our audience across media platforms and launched new products to strengthen our competitive position with Millennial consumers and advertisers wanting to reach them," stated Harty.

Harty added Meredith generated a record $63 million of political advertising revenues in fiscal 2017, likely helped by the presidential election in the fall of last year.

Traffic across Meredith's digital properties averaged 86 million monthly unique visitors, an increase of 8% compared to the previous year.