CosmoGirl to Close

NEW YORK – Hearst Magazines is closing CosmoGirl magazine, the teen title it spun off from Cosmopolitan in 1999, with the December issue being the last. The subscriber base will be folded into fellow Hearst title Seventeen. Editor in chief Susan Schulz will be "staying on at Hearst to work on special projects," according to a company statement, and publisher Vicki Wellington will become the publisher of the new Food Network magazine, which appeared in the form of a test issue this month.

The company declined to comment on how many other employees would be affected -- the masthead lists 41 on the editorial side, two on the Web site, and about 33 on the business side -- but said all would have an opportunity to interview within the company.

Through October, CosmoGirl had 527 ad pages, down 15.5 percent from last year. (By contrast, Seventeen had 693 pages in that period, down 8.8 percent, and Teen Vogue had 919 pages, down 5.9 percent.) Newsstand was off 18 percent in the first half of the year, to an average of 302,800, and the total circulation was 1.4 million.

For complete coverage, see Monday's WWD.