Earlier this year, Bonnier Corp. split its Parenting magazine into two different editions based on the ages of its readers’ children, creating Parenting School Years and Parenting Early Years. Now, the company has announced that the rate base of Parenting School Years will increase by 10 percent next year, bringing it up to 550,000 from the 500,000.

This is Parenting‘s first rate base increase since 2001, and brings the total combined rate base for both editions to 2.2 million. According to the company, average sub price and paid circulation have been rising since the introduction of the new editions, and the magazine now has the highest number of paid subscribers in the parenting category. What’s more, the upcoming September issues are the biggest issues ever for the new editions, the company said.

However, the news comes as a Mediaweek article revealed that the split didn’t pay off the way Bonnier expected.

“This year through July/August, the [parenting] category declined 11 percent in ad pages, per the Mediaweek Monitor. But Parenting Early Years‘ pages fell 26 percent to 435 through August,” the article said. For September, Early Years will have 97 ad pages, while School Years will have 83, Bonnier said.

Still, increasing the rate base of Parenting School Years shows commitment to the new model. The rate base increase will go into effect with the February 2010 issue. School Years, which was previously only available through subscriptions, will also go on sale at newsstands starting with the September issue.