Disney is shuttering its Wondertime magazine and folding the wondertime.com website into its network of family website. Mediaweeksays the company will focus on its FamilyFun parenting title.
Disney said its U.S. consumer magazine unit would focus its efforts on its bigger parenting title, 2.1-million-circ FamilyFun. March's issue of Wondertime will be the last, and Wondertime.com will be folded into Disney Online's network of family-focused Web sites in May, the company said.
Launched as a quarterly in early 2006, Wondertime offered an alternative to traditional parenting magazines, with a focus on learning and target audience of moms with kids under the age of 6. Wondertime was growing but from a small base. The title's ad pages increased 24 percent to 557 in 2008 versus a 3 percent decline in ad pages for the category overall, per the Mediaweek Monitor. Its rate base was slated to go 650,000 in February, an increase of 30 percent.
Min OnlinesaysWondertime had strong ad sales in 2008 but Disney may have been concerned about future revenues and the recession.
Disney is shuttering its Wondertime magazine and folding the wondertime.com website into its network of family website. Mediaweek says the company will focus on its FamilyFun parenting title.
