• by David Goetzl , March 14, 2006

The publisher of Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies' Home Journal, Meredith Corporation, has formed a new unit, Meredith Video Solutions, to create video content around its magazine brands. In addition to exploring opportunities in television syndication, the new division will focus on bulking up video offerings, and corresponding ad opportunities, for the Web sites of its magazine fleet.

For example, the unit could send video cameras on magazine shoots, adding a video component to, say, a photo session with Teri Hatcher, on the cover of this month's Ladies' Home Journal. "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 has hired a syndication veteran to handle sales for the new unit--J.R. McCabe, who joins from Paramount and has also worked for Universal. 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.