Dotdash Meredith, the publishing company owned by Barry Diller‘s IAC, is changing its corporate name to People Inc.
The move is an effort to harness the brand recognition of the decades-old celebrity brand, which is the crown jewel of the former Time Inc. titles acquired by Meredith and then merged with Dotdash in 2021.
While blue-chip Time Inc. brands Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated each was acquired by separate owners after Time Warner divested its publishing arm in 2014, Meredith aggregated People and other lifestyle titles. Along with People, the Iowa-based publisher of Better Homes & Gardens also acquired Entertainment Weekly, InStyle and Southern Living, running the portfolio before IAC’s $2.7 billion purchase of them in 2021.
The roster of more than 40 media titles also includes Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Allrecipes and Verywell.
The updated corporate logo of People Inc. uses hand-drawn letters aiming to emulate the original company’s logo, with a multi-colored dot after “Inc” symbolizing the online-focused Dotdash era. The digital-focused IAC also owns the Ask Media and The Daily Beast.
In 2022, Dotdash Meredith discontinued the print edition of Entertainment Weekly, which had been created by Time Inc. as a spinoff of People. EW still exists in online-only form.
While print magazines have declined significantly from their heyday, People remains a force, with total circulation of 2.5 million in the second half of 2024. That puts it securely in the top 10 in the U.S., slightly behind corporate cousin Southern Living, interestingly enough, with multiple times that amount of reach online.
