Good Housekeeping India

About Good Housekeeping India

Overview

Good Housekeeping India is the Indian edition of Good Housekeeping, the women's lifestyle magazine published in the United States by Hearst Magazines. Launched in India in October 2004 by the India Today Group, it is published from New Delhi in English. The magazine is targeted at the urban Indian woman and covers health, family, home, food, beauty and relationships, positioning itself as a practical guide to everyday life. India became the 15th country in which the title was published when the edition launched.

The original American title

Good Housekeeping was founded in the United States in 1885 and is one of the oldest continuously published women's magazines in the world, with a history of more than 120 years. Published by the US-based Hearst Magazines, it built its reputation on service journalism: tested recipes, home management advice, health reporting and product evaluation. The title had a presence in the Indian market until the early 1950s before its formal Indian edition was launched decades later.

Launch in India

The Indian edition was launched in October 2004 by the Lifestyle division of the India Today Group. Announcing the launch, Mala Sekhri, publishing director of the group's Lifestyle division, said that the changing lifestyle of Indian women had created space for a magazine catering to women balancing home, family, kitchen and career. The launch targeted women in the age group of 28 to 40, and the magazine was described at the time as intended for women who were multi-taskers managing outdoor and indoor activities. The publishers described the Indian edition as the fastest-growing women's magazine in the country in its early years, and its mix of international heritage and locally produced service content gave it a distinct position among Indian women's titles.

Editorial focus

Good Housekeeping India focuses on four broad subjects: health, family, home and food. Health coverage forms the largest single component, accounting for more than 20 per cent of content, with articles addressing serious health conditions rather than minor ailments. The family section, forming 10 to 12 per cent of the magazine, carries articles on relationships with husbands, in-laws and companions. The home and food sections cover interiors, home management and recipes. Regular sections in the Indian edition have included Good Health, Good Looks, Good Food, Good Family, Good House, Good Ideas and the Good List.

Target readership

The magazine is aimed at the contemporary urban Indian woman and is read by both homemakers and working women, with readers ranging from their 20s to their 60s and beyond. Endorsed by the country's leading experts, it presents information described as reliable, engaging, spirited and optimistic. Its editorial positioning describes it as a self-help manual for all aspects of a woman's life: her home, her relationships with children and friends, her health, looks and culinary interests. The tone is presented as reliable and practical, speaking to real everyday women while retaining aspirational elements.

Global reach

Good Housekeeping is published in 16 countries around the world and the brand reports a global readership of more than 58 million. The Indian edition draws on the international title's heritage of more than a century of publication in the United States and over 80 years in the United Kingdom. The Indian edition's content mixes internationally sourced material with locally produced features, expert advice and recipes suited to Indian readers.

Cover personalities

The Indian edition has featured prominent personalities on its covers, presented as women with stories to tell and as inspirations to readers. Cover personalities have included the late Benazir Bhutto, Oprah Winfrey, Shabana Azmi, Aparna Sen, Waheeda Rehman and Juhi Chawla, who appeared as the cover personality of the March 2013 issue. The covers typically pair a personality profile with the issue's service content on health, beauty, home and family.

Typical issue contents

A typical issue of Good Housekeeping India combines cover features with practical service sections. For example, issues have carried guides to happiness and well-being, articles on probiotics and eating disorders, health features on heart attack management and cold remedies, beauty features on skincare and hair, fashion and jewellery features, decor features on modular homes and floral arrangements, and family features on children's television habits and parenting. The food sections carry quick and easy recipes, including seasonal and festive menus.

Digital editions

Digital editions of Good Housekeeping India are distributed through e-magazine platforms including Readwhere, where issues from September 2012 through February 2016 are listed under the India Today Group. The listings show the magazine's regular monthly appearance across those years, with themed issues such as the September 2012 "A–Z guide to happiness and well-being," the February 2013 Valentine's Day special and the March 2013 issue fronted by Juhi Chawla. The e-magazine editions carry the same editorial content as the print issues and are available for download and offline reading on mobile devices and tablets.

The publisher

The magazine is published by the India Today Group, one of India's largest media houses, through its Lifestyle division. The group's lifestyle portfolio has also included Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, placing Good Housekeeping within a stable of international women's and lifestyle titles. The group has a long history of publishing international magazine titles in India and lists Good Housekeeping among its lifestyle publications on its official website. The magazine is published from New Delhi, where the group's lifestyle editorial operations are based.

The American original: more than 140 years of Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping was founded on 2 May 1885 in Holyoke, Massachusetts, by the American publisher and poet Clark W. Bryan, as a fortnightly magazine whose mission he described as working to produce and perpetuate perfection in the household. It became a monthly in 1891 and grew steadily, reaching a circulation of 300,000 by 1911, the year the Hearst Corporation purchased the title — ownership it has retained ever since. The magazine topped one million circulation in the mid-1920s, kept growing through the Great Depression, and reached a peak of 5.5 million in 1966, making it one of the "Seven Sisters" of American women's service magazines alongside titles such as Ladies' Home Journal and Redbook. In 1922 Hearst created a British edition along the same lines. Its contributors over the decades have included writers of the stature of Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf, Edna St. Vincent Millay, J. D. Salinger and Evelyn Waugh.

A defining feature of the brand took shape in 1900 with the founding of what became the Good Housekeeping Institute, originally called the Experiment Station, which conducted scientific testing of food purity and household products — guided at one point by Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, the first commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who joined the Institute in 1912. The testing programme led to the introduction of the Good Housekeeping Seal in December 1909, originally called the "Tested and Approved List," which became one of the most recognised consumer guarantees in American advertising history. The Institute continues to specialise in product reviews by scientific experts, and the Seal — popularly known as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval — functions as a limited warranty programme. This heritage of tested, trustworthy service journalism is the foundation on which the Indian edition was built: the same promise of reliable, expert-backed advice, adapted for the Indian household.