Hearst to Launch The Pioneer Woman Magazine

By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg 

Ree Drummond, the entertaining food blogger who has translated her life on a ranch in Pawhuska, Okla., into a mini-empire of books, housewares products and a cooking show on Food Network, is hitting the newsstands next year.

Hearst Magazines, in partnership with Food Network majority owner Scripps Networks Interactive, is launching a new magazine in June titled The Pioneer Woman, named after the brand Ms. Drummond has built. The first issue will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which also sells Ms. Drummond's housewares line.

"It is a little old school, but one thing I've learned through having a blog and then having cookbooks with some of the same recipes, is that people want to hold something in their hand and kick back and read it," Ms. Drummond said in an interview. "It's a natural next step in terms of a medium I haven't tackled yet."

The joint-venture publication will feature Ms. Drummond's many practical tips on how to make food that children and adults enjoy -- lemon pancakes, French dip sandwiches -- as well as advice on how to entertain, humor, and her observations on living and working on a ranch.

"It will be a lifestyle magazine, not just a food magazine," said Ellen Levine, Hearst's editorial executive overseeing the project. Hearst typically puts out two issues of a new title, tallies the consumer response, then does additional research before deciding how to proceed.

Sharing her experiences in the rural heartland has helped make Ms. Drummond a hit with readers. Her last adult book, 2015's "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime," has sold an impressive 714,000 hardcover copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks 85% of retail book sales in the U.S. excluding digital copies.

Altogether, Ms. Drummond's four adult cookbooks, memoir and 12 children's books have 7 million copies in print in all formats in the U.S., according to her publisher, William Morrow & Co., an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.

Ms. Drummond's culinary skills led to a cable TV show titled "The Pioneer Woman" that made its debut on Food Network in summer 2011. Since then, it has emerged as one of Food Network's top-rated daytime series, said a spokeswoman for the network.

Hearst Magazines long has embraced partnerships that can help market its magazines. It debuted Food Network Magazine in 2008 and HGTV Magazine in 2011, each in partnership with Scripps-owned networks. In 2014, Hearst launched Dr Oz The Good Life magazine in partnership with Dr. Mehmet Oz.

"All have been very profitable," said Michael Clinton, president of marketing and publishing director of Hearst Magazines. "Our partners have huge fan bases, and those fans want more. Ree also has an enormous following." Hearst Magazines next year also is expected to launch a new magazine in partnership with Airbnb Inc.

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 08, 2016 00:14 ET (05:14 GMT)

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