Meredith Third Quarter Earnings Per Share Up 15 Percent

Meredith Third Quarter Earnings Per Share Up 15 Percent

Meredith Corporation , one of America’s leading media and marketing companies, today announced third quarter fiscal 2007 results. Earnings per share grew 15 percent to $0.92, and net earnings increased to $45 million. Total revenues increased 4 percent to $410 million, including 7 percent growth in advertising revenues.

Core earnings per share for the third quarter grew 10 percent to $0.88 from $0.80, and core earnings grew to $44 million from $41 million. Core earnings for fiscal 2007 exclude a

one-time tax benefit partially offset by restructuring charges. These are described in a press release issued on March 27, 2007, and in the attached Table 1 which reconciles core earnings to net earnings. For fiscal 2006, net and core earnings are the same.

“The highlights for the quarter were the very strong advertising performance of our Publishing Group properties and the outstanding growth in online revenues across the company,” said Stephen M. Lacy, Meredith’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our ongoing efforts to aggressively build our online presence and capabilities enabled us to double online revenues compared to the prior year quarter. Going forward, we will further expand these initiatives to serve increasing consumer demand for content delivered across multiple media platforms.”

For the nine months, earnings per share grew 19 percent to $2.26, and net earnings increased to $111 million. Core earnings per share grew 17 percent to $2.22 from $1.90 a year ago, and core earnings increased to $109 million from $96 million a year ago. In the second quarter, the Company reported a $0.04 per share charge related to a bankruptcy of a book distributor, which is included in core earnings per share. (See Table 1 for a reconciliation of core earnings to net earnings.) Total revenues increased 3 percent to $1.2 billion, and advertising revenues increased 7 percent to $740 million.

OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS Publishing Results

Publishing operating profit increased to $64 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2007, up from $61 million in the prior year quarter. Revenues increased to $330 million, up from $319 million in the prior year quarter.

Publishing advertising revenues grew 7 percent, including a mid-single digit increase in magazine advertising revenue. Better Homes and Gardens, More, Family Circle and Meredith’s Special Interest Publications all delivered solid growth in advertising revenues and net advertising revenue per page in the quarter.

“The creative and sales enhancements made at Better Homes and Gardens are resonating with consumers and marketers alike,” Lacy said. “Family Circle and More continued the success they have enjoyed all fiscal year, with advertising revenues up more than 25 percent at each title in the quarter. Additionally, our special interest publications reported solid advertising revenue growth, up in the high-single digits for the quarter.”

Meredith’s women’s service titles increased share in the quarter with 11 percent growth in advertising pages compared to a 5 percent increase for the women’s service field category as a whole, according to the latest data from the Publishers Information Bureau.

Meredith’s magazine-branded web sites posted excellent growth in the quarter as well. Advertising revenues were up more than 50 percent. Traffic increased significantly with unique visitors and page views both up more than 10 percent. Online subscription orders also increased. Meredith secured more than 2 million online subscriptions through the first nine months of fiscal 2007, already surpassing total orders for all of fiscal 2006.

On March 29, Meredith unveiled a new Web 2.0 enhanced version of its highly popular Better Homes and Gardens web site ( http://www.bhg.com/ ). The redesigned portal features a host of new, highly interactive experiences – such as blogs, desktop widgets and wikis – and community sharing applications.

For the first nine months of fiscal 2007, Publishing operating profit was $146 million, flat compared to the prior-year period. Total Publishing revenues were up slightly to $944 million. Advertising revenues increased 2 percent to $476 million.