• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 19, 2008

The Reader's Digest Association is planning to launch a new magazine, Healthy Cooking, which will replace Light & Tasty, the Ad Age Web site reports. The new launch and the shuttering of Light & Tasty are the latest in a series of shakeups from Mary Berner, who was appointed president and CEO of RDA upon its acquisition by Ripplewood Holdings in March 2007.

The new title must force its way into a category that's already dominated by a couple of big titles, including Time Inc.'s Cooking Light and Everyday Food from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Popular health magazines like Prevention, published by Rodale, also offer healthy recipes. Big women's titles like Good Housekeeping and Ladies' Home Journal have moved quickly to increase their healthy-cooking content, branching out with recipes for mobile devices and Web sites for sharing recipes. It will also compete with Relish, a monthly newspaper-distributed magazine with a circulation of around 12 million produced by the Publishers Group of America, which also owns American Profile.

Last but not least, Healthy Cooking will have to differentiate itself from Everyday with Rachael Ray, also published by the Reader's Digest Association. As in her TV show, the ebullient hostess tends to offer healthy recipes in her magazine.

Of course, Healthy Cooking has a couple of major advantages, including RDA's giant database of roughly 70 million U.S. consumers, advertiser relationships and distribution arrangements.

The company can also draw on extensive editorial expertise and content in this area, including dozens of cookbooks published by its book division, and the magazines and cookbooks published by Reiman Publications, acquired in 2002 for $700 million.

In addition to Light & Tasty (now closing) Reiman publishes Taste of Home, Cooking for 2, and Simple & Delicious. Taste of Home also has an events division that hosts cooking shows around the country.