Memo Pad: Bigger Appetit... Exit Strategy...

BIGGER APPETIT: When Gourmet closed, its readers received sister publication Bon Appétit to fulfill what was left of their Gourmet subscriptions. In January, Bon Appétit will use that sub file to help boost its rate base 15 percent, to 1.5 million from 1.3 million. The increase still puts it behind its more mass competitors Cooking Light, which has a rate base of 1.75 million, and Every Day With Rachael Ray, which carries a 1.7 million circulation guarantee. But the Condé Nast food magazine will put some distance between it and The Food Network Magazine (1 million as of the January/February issue), Everyday Food (1 million), Food & Wine (925,000) and Saveur (325,000). “We will continue to deliver an upscale epicurean magazine with broad appeal,” said Bon Appétit publisher Paul Jowdy. The magazine underwent a redesign in 2008 that freshened up its look and introduced a new logo but, since then, circulation has stagnated. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, total paid and verified circulation remained relatively flat in the first half of 2009, but newsstand sales fell 12.6 percent, to 98,917.

— Stephanie D. Smith