What Meredith does

Meredith operates today as a publishing brand portfolio within People Incorporated (formerly IAC), a media and marketing conglomerate that was renamed in August 2026 to reflect the strategic primacy of its publishing operations. Founded in 1902 as Meredith Corporation and historically known for flagship lifestyle titles such as Better Homes & Gardens and People, the company was acquired by IAC in 2021 for approximately $2 billion alongside Time Inc., combining two of America's largest legacy magazine publishers into a single media division. Under People Inc., the company runs a multi-vertical digital and print publishing operation organized into Health, Finance, Food/Drink, Home, Beauty & Style, Travel, Tech/Sustainability, Entertainment, and Premium Publishing categories, serving broad consumer audiences in North America.

The core product is an integrated content platform distributed across owned websites and apps, print magazines, social media, and a proprietary advertising technology product called D/Cipher that serves brand partners with programmatic and audience-targeting solutions. The underlying technology is primarily content management and ad-tech rather than AI-native; the company's primary data asset is a multi-decade archive of human-generated editorial articles and video which has become strategically valuable to AI model providers. Headcount is reported in the 1,001–5,000 employee range, with offices in New York, Des Moines, and Birmingham.

Revenue mechanics span digital advertising, print advertising and subscriptions, content licensing to third parties (including AI firms such as OpenAI), brand licensing, events, and e-commerce partnerships. Over a two-year period, the publishing business grew revenue 15% while reducing reliance on Google referral traffic from 70% to 25% of the referral mix, even as overall sessions declined approximately 50% — a deliberate diversification away from search-driven traffic toward direct, licensing, and partnership-sourced monetization.

Name

Meredith

Legal name

Meredith Corporation

Website

https://meredith.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1902

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

Meredith operates as a portfolio of lifestyle publishing brands (People, Better Homes & Gardens, Time, etc.) within People Incorporated, the largest US digital and print publisher. It serves consumer audiences across health, finance, food, home, beauty, travel, and entertainment via digital, print, advertising technology (D/Cipher), and AI content licensing.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Consumer Media Publishing

NAICS

Periodical Publishers (513120), Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers (5131), Publishing Industries (513)

SIC

Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721), Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Publishing Networks & Multi-Author Publications (MPACAIAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Consumer News & Digital Newsrooms (Web/App-First) (MPAJADAD), Digital Publishing Aggregators & Distribution (e-book distribution, news syndication) (MPAJAMAE), Digital Newsstand & Aggregation Platforms (Magazine/News Apps, Bundles) (MPAJAKAE)

Keywords

• Consumer media publishing
• Digital and print magazines
• Lifestyle content publishing
• Advertising solutions
• Content licensing

Headquarters

HQ city

Des Moines

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Publishing (Digital & Print): As part of People Inc. (formerly IAC's media division), Meredith generates revenue through digital and print publishing operations including magazine subscriptions, digital advertising, and content licensing across multiple verticals including Health, Finance, Food, Home, Beauty, Travel, Entertainment, and Premium Publishing.
2. Content Licensing to AI Firms: Monetization of human-generated article and video archive through licensing deals with AI companies including OpenAI.
3. Diversified Revenue Streams: Revenue generated from licensing, events, e-commerce, and social platforms as part of IAC/People Inc.'s diversified media business.

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Meredith Corporation is a media and marketing company that publishes digital and print lifestyle content across multiple verticals including Health, Finance, Food & Drink, Home, Beauty & Style, Travel, Tech & Sustainability, Entertainment, and Premium Publishing. It also sells advertising through its D/Cipher platform and licenses its archive of human-generated articles and video to third parties including AI firms.

Product overview

People Inc. (formerly IAC), operating as America's largest digital and print publisher, acquired Meredith and Time Inc. in 2021 for approximately $2 billion. The company operates a multi-brand publishing platform organized into distinct content verticals: Health, Finance, Food & Drink, Home, Beauty & Style, Travel, Tech & Sustainability, Entertainment, and Premium Publishing. The portfolio includes flagship brands such as Better Homes & Gardens, People, and various magazine titles from the Meredith and Time Inc. acquisitions. The company also offers D/Cipher, an advertising intelligence product. Revenue is generated through digital advertising, print advertising, licensing, events, e-commerce, and social platforms. The company has significantly reduced its reliance on Google traffic from 70% to 25% while growing revenue 15% over two years.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Better Homes & Gardens: Home and lifestyle publication brand
• People
• Time

Products and services

• Better Homes & Gardens

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• OpenAIminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 29 April 2026People Inc. is pursuing content licensing deals with AI firms including OpenAI to monetize its archive of human-generated articles and video as publishers globally face zero traffic from Google AI Overviews.
• Time Inc.coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021IAC acquired both Meredith and Time Inc. brands in 2021 for approximately $2 billion, combining them under the People Inc. umbrella to create America's largest digital and print publisher with diversified content across multiple lifestyle verticals.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Condé Nast: Owner of Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Wired; directly competes with Meredith/People Inc. across premium digital and print lifestyle verticals with a similar subscription and advertising model.
• Hearst Communications: Operates magazines (Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping), newspapers, and TV stations; directly comparable to Meredith's legacy portfolio across lifestyle, broadcast, and integrated marketing.
• Trusted Media Brands: Publisher of Reader's Digest, Taste of Home, and The Family Handyman; competes with Meredith in consumer lifestyle print and digital verticals with a similar subscription model.
• Dotdash Meredith (legacy overlap): Direct digital-publishing competitor (Investopedia, The Spruce, Verywell) operating in the same lifestyle verticals as Meredith, monetized through display advertising and affiliate commerce.
• Vox Media: Digital-first publisher of Vox, The Verge, New York Magazine, and SB Nation; comparable premium-content, advertising, and live-events business model targeting lifestyle and culture audiences.
• Forbes Media: Business and lifestyle digital publisher with subscription, advertising, and branded-content revenue streams that parallel Meredith's editorial-led monetization approach.
• BuzzFeed: Digital-native publisher operating BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Tasty with an ad-supported, social-traffic-driven model directly comparable to People Inc.'s lifestyle verticals.

Broad incumbents

• Advance Publications: Parent of Condé Nast and a portfolio of newspapers and digital media; broader incumbent operating at greater scale across news and lifestyle than Meredith alone.
• Warner Bros. Discovery: Large incumbent entertainment and lifestyle media owner (People en Español competitor, entertainment brands) with overlapping audiences and broader content portfolio than Meredith.

Regional players

• Bonnier Group: European-headquartered magazine and media group with similar lifestyle, home, and special-interest titles; comparable publishing model but primarily competing outside North America.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/MeredithCorp
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/meredith

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles16 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A25 records

Investments3 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Meredith