Au Revoir to Mademoiselle

After decreasing 19.6 percent last year and being taken over by Norwood a year and a half ago, 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. As a result, the 66-year-old women's magazine is closing down operations. Many employees of the failed magazine are being placed with sister companies, including Fairchild Publications and Golf Digest magazines. Others will be laid-off, according to reports.

Revamped recently under the tagline "The Magazine for Your Me Years," Mademoiselle was crafted into a sexy, vulgar, shallow and occasionally funny publication with shock-value cover lines about women's lifestyle issues, beauty and sexuality. But the redo was not well-received among readers. Newsstand sales reportedly decreased and advertisers dropped out. 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, according to the company.