Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. Announces Multi-Year Media Partnership With Meredith Corporation

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

today announced a ten-year partnership with Meredith Corporation

whereby Meredith will assume ad sales, circulation, and production of Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Weddings magazines, enabling Meredith to market MSLO's magazines and digital assets alongside Meredith's own leading brands. Under the terms of this transformative, multi-year agreement, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's (MSLO) editorial team will continue to create all content for print and digital properties. Meredith will also assume responsibility for the sales and marketing of www.marthastewart.com and www.marthastewartweddings.com and MSLO's related digital assets including its vast video library. MSLO will retain control over the brand's social media channels. The agreement, which applies to the United States and Canada, is effective November 1, 2014. Meredith will begin delivering editions starting with the February 2015 issue of Martha Stewart Living and the Winter 2014 special issue of Martha Stewart's Real Weddings. "We are very excited to partner with a great company like Meredith, which has an excellent track record in advertising sales, operations and production of a library of some of our country's most popular magazines. Our editorial team can focus entirely on what we do best: the creation of inspirational, original, practical, useful, and trusted content for our superb publications and digital properties - content that continually enhances and improves consumers' lives," said Founder and Non-Executive Chairman, Martha Stewart. Throughout the years, MSLO has been recognized by the industry for its award-winning content including multiple national magazine awards, 19 Emmys, 3 James Beard Awards, several Webby Awards and more. "This partnership marks a significant milestone in the continued evolution of our Company. Our award-winning content coupled with Meredith's much larger size and sales expertise, expands our brands' reach while significantly and immediately improving our bottom line," said CEO Dan Dienst. "Fundamentally, we are a content and design creation company with a peerless and globally recognized brand. This transaction enables us to remain focused on our core competencies, permitting our Company's resources, and management's attention, to be centered on driving growth in our merchandise vertical over the coming months and years. We are honored to have Meredith as our newest partner." "This is a winning arrangement for both companies and their respective shareholders, as well as advertising clients and consumers alike," said Meredith Chairman and CEO Stephen M. Lacy. "We will leverage Meredith's tremendous expertise and scale in the magazine and digital fields with the award-winning multi-platform content created by the Martha Stewart team. The change will be invisible to the consumer, and strengthen the Martha Stewart brand in the advertising marketplace." Martha Stewart Living is published 10 times annually with a rate base of 2 million. Its readership is over 10 million, including 1.75 million millennial women, according to Mediamark Research Institute. Martha Stewart's digital properties average 8 million monthly unique visitors and 60 million views, according to comScore. Martha Stewart Weddings, a quarterly publication, continues its position as the number one bridal magazine on newsstands. Meredith will market Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Weddings and the digital assets with its own leading brands, including Better Homes and Gardens, Parents, Allrecipes and Traditional Home, according to Meredith National Media Group President Tom Harty. The agreement will enable Meredith to go to market with a reach of more than 100 million unduplicated American women, and a digital reach of more than 65 million unduplicated monthly unique visitors. The opportunities presented by this new partnership, along with significant cost savings for MSLO, will have an immediate impact on MSLO's Operating Income. On a normalized basis, MSLO's Operating Income is expected to improve by as much as $10-15 million annually. The agreement will result in a fourth quarter restructuring charge, principally for severance, of approximately $2-3 million. The Company will provide additional details associated with today's announcement when it reports its earnings for the third quarter at the end of the month.