Today, Parade’s HealthyStyle will appear in newspapers around the country. A sister title to the weekly Sunday insert Parade, HealthyStyle will appear monthly in 46 newspapers, either on Wednesday or Thursday, and will have a combined a circulation of more than 8 million.

“We thought that in spite of the recession it is a good time to launch HealthyStyle. We know from our research that readers are interested in additional health and style content. And we have had a great response from advertisers and newspapers,” Randy Siegel, president and publisher of Parade, tells Media Life.

Media people think HealthyStyle's prospects are solid, even with the tough economy.

“From day one they are an enormous player in terms of reach," says longtime media consultant Martin S. Walker, referring to the title's circulation. "And they have all the contacts and credibility with advertisers. They are not just some flaky start up where someone will question, ‘Are you going to be around tomorrow?’”

The launch issue carries ads from Unilever and Campbell’s, among others. HealthyStyle will be 24 pages in all, including 10 pages of advertising. This includes advertising from the pharmaceutical, packaged goods, home electronics and retail categories.

Editorially, the magazine will cover health, food and fitness, nutrition and beauty, with advice from both celebrities and experts.

The editorial focus was arrived at after researching the interests of Parade readers. They were found to be engaged in celebrities and health and wellness. Says Siegel: “This is a nice marriage of the two.”

The magazine does give rise to some questions. For one thing, will this subject matter work as a Wednesday insert?

“That will be the big question,” says Walker. He notes that Thursday is the big shopping day for food for the weekend, so it does makes sense for that category, but that's just one of the categories it's targeting.

For Parade, which is owned by Advance Publications, which is also parent to Conde Nast, HealthyStyle is an opportunity to attract advertisers beyond those targeted by Parade.

For the newspapers that carry HealthyStyle, it's a chance to share in national ad dollars as local advertising continues to decline.

“It is another vehicle to try to draw national advertising into local publications, and I guess that they must have some kind of evidence from their advertisers that they would like that and that there is potential mid-week,” says Peter Kreisky, founder of the Kreisky Media Consultancy. “They’d like exposure mid-week as well as weekend.”

The launch of HealthyStyle follows by weeks the arrival of WSJ., the Wall Street Journal’s new magazine, which appears as an insert in top markets, and Spry, a health-oriented insert from Publishing Group of America, which also publishes American Profile, a weekly insert, and Relish, a monthly it launched in 2006.

More inserts are likely on the way. Siegel says Parade is incubating half a dozen ideas, and he says there may be another announced in 2009.

Siegel dismisses any talk that Life's failure jinxed newspaper inserts.

“It is still a strong category. There is still room for growth. The problems that Life faced didn’t reflect on future additions to the supplement category. They were challenged by their execution strategy,” says Siegel. “The fundamental challenge Life magazine had was that they weren’t meeting the content needs of newspaper readers.”