I’m dreaming of a big kitchen

The ultimate kitchen, the ultimate cost

Better Homes and Gardens (美好家园) is an American magazine that publishes editions in Australia, and for the last half year, China. It’s about interior decoration, cooking, and the material aspirations of the middle classes. It is owned by Meredith Corporation.

The Chinese edition is produced by SEEC (财讯, the group that publishes Caijing magazine), using a publication licence that appears to have been issued in Wuhan.

On the masthead, the publisher is Meihao jiayuan zazhishe (美好家园杂志社), but the stated publisher’s address is a Wuhan press that also publishes digest magazines like Reading Digest (读书文摘报).

SEEC is a Cayman Islands company that controls a host of media companies in China from magazines to the blog portal Hexun, but with the group controlled by Wang Boming who is the president of China’s Stock Exchange Executive Council, they can get away with liberties that other media companies would not dare to take.

Back to Better Homes and Gardens: About half of the content is locally produced, although most of the photos feature homes that most urban Chinese can only dream of. According to their rate card, their target readers are 25- to 35-year-old, high income females. (Like most other glossy magazines in China.)

The current issue’s feature is “The ultimate kitchen” advising readers on renovating a very large kitchen. There’s also a section on 22 very expensive home appliances, and a guide to producing homemade Christmas gifts.

Will Chinese readers go for this stuff, bearing in mind the average size of a kitchen here? What about Christmas gifts?

Time will tell, but Better Homes and Gardens will not make easy money. The Trends Group, which is one of the most successful glossy magazine publishers in China, recently decided to stop publishing Trends House (时尚置业). Despite the frenzy of renovation and interior decoration in Chinese cities, the title just wasn’t making any money.

Thanks to S for the help