Hearst to make changes to a Magazine

Hearst Magazines will increase Good Housekeeping’s trim size to a larger format, cut its rate base and raise the cover price in an effort to update the 124-year-old title’s perception.

Over the past couple of decades, older women’s service titles have lost ground to newer, so-called women’s lifestyle publications like Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s Martha Stewart Living and Time Inc.’s Real Simple, whose readers tend to be younger and more affluent.

With the January 2010 issue, Good Housekeeping will increase its trim size by 10 percent to 8 ¼ by 10 7/8 inches while lowering its rate base to 4.3 million from 4.6 million. The cover price will increase to $3.49 from $2.50, keeping GH still well below the cover prices of the lifestyle monthlies, which cost $4 and up.

GH will still have the second biggest rate base among women’s service and lifestyle books after Meredith Corp.’s Better Homes and Gardens, which has a guaranteed circ of 7.6 million.