Meredith Corporation
American media conglomerate

Meredith Corporation was an American media conglomerate based in Des Moines, Iowa, that owned newspapers, magazines, television stations, and websites. Its publications had a readership of more than 120 million and paid circulation of more than 40 million, its websites had nearly 135 million monthly unique visitors and its broadcast television stations reached 11% of U.S. households. Since 2021, Meredith was absorbed into the new conglomerate, Dotdash Meredith, underneath the holding company IAC Inc.
History
Early years
Edwin Thomas Meredith founded the company in 1902 when he began publishing Successful Farming magazine.
In 1922, Meredith began publishing Fruit, Garden and Home magazine, a home and family service publication. In 1924, the magazine was retitled Better Homes and Gardens, and the first issue cost a dime on the newsstand. In 1930, the company published the first edition of The Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. In 1946, the company became a public company.
In 1970, the company attempted to enter the entertainment industry by purchasing game show and film producer Ralph Andrews Productions. Two years later, it became MC Productions, and Ralph Andrews bought back rights to the game shows later that year, which resulted in a subsequent lawsuit in the late 1970s.
The public source identifies “Meredith Corporation” as american media conglomerate. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Meredith, Corporation and American.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1921579. VIAF identifies the subject as 150146289. The Library of Congress control number is n84107846. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1902, 1922 and 1924.
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This entry incorporates text from “Meredith Corporation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.