Condé Nast Closing Down Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride

by Lisa Palladino (RSS feed)
Oct 12th 2009 at 9:01PM

Condé Nast Closing Down <I>Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride</I> and <I>Elegant Bride</I>

More bad news for the magazine industry hit last week: Condé Nast is closing down several of its big-name magazines, names you know - Gourmet, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride - and one you may not, Cookie, which is about parenthood.

The New York Times noted, "[Gourmet] has suffered a severe decline in ad pages, but the cut still comes as a shock. There was speculation that Condé Nast would close one of its food titles - Gourmet or Bon Appétit - but most bets were on the latter. Gourmet has a richer history than Bon Appétit, and its editor, Ruth Reichl, is powerful in the food world. Cookie is a relatively new introduction, started in 2005, while the bridal magazines were seen as offshoots of the bigger Brides magazine, which Condé Nast also owns."

The cuts were done at the conclusion of a three-month study by McKinsey & Company, which conducted an analysis of Condé Nast's costs and recommended that several magazines cut about 25 percent from their budgets. These are the first closings announced by the company since the study.

These are not the first magazines shuttered by Condé Nast, even though, as the Times notes, the company never has been quick to close titles, and in the last year or so has closed only newer titles, Condé Nast Portfolio and Domino, along with folding Men's Vogue into Vogue.

This isn't the first time Luxist has noted magazine closings either. See this piece I did last month, which mentions in the gallery some other closings noted by my colleagues.

Tags: brides, conde nast, CondeNast, cookie, magazine, magazines