Golf For Women Magazine To Cease Publication After August Issue

Golf For Women To Shutter After July/August Issue

Conde Nast Publications President & CEO Charles Townsend yesterday announced that Golf For Women magazine will cease publication following its July/August issue. Golf For Women was launched in '88 and in '01 was purchased by Conde Nast from the Meredith Corporation. The magazine publishes six times a year and has a current ratebase of 600,000 (Conde Nast). Mediaweek's Lucia Moses reported former Golf For Women Editor Susan Reed is moving to Hearst Magazines where she was named Editor of O, The Oprah Magazine. The news "didn't surprise insiders," who said that Golf For Women had "struggled to find its footing in the years since Conde Nast bought it." And year to date through its July/August issue, "ad pages declined 7.3[%] to 336" (MEDIAWEEK.com, 7/7). Sources indicated that Golf For Women was going to "lose about $7[M] in 2008 after an internal split of marketing services and other support units from Golf Digest earlier this year." About "two dozen people will be shown the door by the end of the week" (N.Y. POST, 7/8). The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Shira Ovide reports magazine publishers have "held up better than their newspaper peers, but signs [show] that magazines aren't immune from tightening consumer spending and the quickening migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/8). Conde Nast is a unit of Advance Publications, which controls American City Business Journals, publisher of THE DAILY.