By Jeff Bercovici

    Au revoir, Mademoiselle.
    Condé Nast told its employees today that it is ceasing publication of the 66-year-old women's magazine.
    Editor in chief Mandi Norwood and publisher Lori Burgess are leaving the company. Condé Nast will try to place other employees in open jobs at other magazines or within its sister companies, Fairchild Publications and Golf Digest Companies. Those who are not reassigned by Friday will be laid off, said a spokeswoman.
    The move is an indication both of how weak the advertising economy has gotten this year and of how badly Norwood has disappointed expectations since taking over the magazine a year-and-a-half ago.
    It’s also a sign of how hard it is to reinvent a magazine that has been repositioned and made over so many times before.
    The last chapter of Mademoiselle's history began two years ago when, in a characteristic move, Condé Nast Chairman S. I. Newhouse poached Norwood from rival Hearst, where she had been editing British Cosmopolitan.
    Possessing a flair for ribaldry, Norwood, it was hoped, could bring new vigor to the foundering Mademoiselle.
    After a delayed start due to difficulty getting out of her Hearst contract, Norwood made a strong impression with her redesigned first issue.
    Under the tagline "The Magazine for Your Me Years," she crafted a magazine that was sexy, vulgar, shallow and occasionally funny, with attention-grabbing cover lines such as "6 Guys to Do before You Say 'I Do'" and "Live Like a Rich Bitch for $75 or Less."
    But the new Mademoiselle was not warmly received. Newsstand sales went down, not up, and advertisers continued to keep their distance.
    Norwood's response was nothing less than a complete reversal in tack. Out went the smutty jokes and cutesy nicknames; in came the "smart women" and serious features about breast cancer and drug addiction.
    The target market, it seemed, was no longer the carefree just-out-of-college crowd but women in their late 20s and early 30s ready to concentrate on careers and marriages.
    For readers, it must have been disorienting. Single-copy sales of Mademoiselle fell by 20.8 percent to 303,223 in the first half of the year, while total paid circulation nosed up 3.6 percent to 1,152,438.
    After tumbling 19.6 percent last year, ad pages in Mademoiselle fell an additional 17.6 percent to 500.63 in the first eight months of 2001, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

October 1, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.

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