• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 14, 2006

The publisher of Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies' Home Journal, Meredith Corporation, has created a unit designed to create video content around its magazine brands. Although the company says it has no specific plans, it has built-in distribution for syndicated series with the 14 television stations it owns, covering about 10 percent of the country.

It has also hired a syndication veteran to handle sales for the new unit, J.R. McCabe, who joins from Paramount and has also worked for Universal.

The company already has a toe in the syndication waters with six 30-minute specials it distributes each year. Previous larger-scale syndication plays have struggled with a Better Homes and Gardens show running for three years in the late 1990s before cancellation, and an American Baby show failing in the years before Meredith acquired the title.

The new unit, Meredith Video Solutions, will function as part of the broadcasting division. Besides at least exploring opportunities in syndication, it will look to bulk up video offerings--and corresponding advertising revenues--for the Web sites of its magazine fleet, and develop content for video-on-demand platforms.

A basic example would be sending video cameras on magazine shoots, adding a video component to--say--a photo session with Teri Hatcher, this month's LHJ cover girl. On the VOD front, Meredith already has a blueprint with the American Baby-branded segments it makes available to Comcast's On Demand platform.

"There is certainly a demand for more advertising inventory as well as more content, and this will give us some more things to sell against," said Meredith spokesman Art Slusark.

As with most media companies, transforming Web sites from promotional platforms to dollar-generating operations is now a priority at Meredith, and the company's interactive division experienced an 80 percent increase in year-over-year revenues for the first six months of the current fiscal year, Slusark said.

Meredith Broadcasting Group President Paul Karpowicz will head the new group with McCabe and Mark Berryhill, who will be in charge of production and programming, reporting to him. Berryhill had been vice president of news and marketing at Meredith Broadcasting.

The unit will also do the video equivalent of custom publishing, including continuing Meredith's production of how-to DVDs for The Home Depot.