Conde Nast picks up ‘YM’ from G+J with intent to kill
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Just as we were on our way to a Wellbutrin-induced haze, Jessica Coen had to go and produce a Conde Nast internal memo announcing the sale of YM to Newhouse & Co. Gruner + Jahr has been publicly shopping the title around after failing miserably to, once again, revive the teen mag.
But 4 Times Square doesn’t have many plans for YM, other than to kill it off with its December/January issue and switch unknowing subscribers over to Teen Vogue, starting with the February 2005 issue. It’ll give editor Amy Astley an excuse to boost the rate base from February’s projected 650,000 to 850,000 (keep in mind that YM’s current rate base, after G+J’s latest reduction, is 1.5 million).
Conde Nast also picked up the rights to YM‘s newsstand pockets and the domain name, ym.com – which we suggest turning into a portal titled Yuppy Mogul. YM staffers, meanwhile, apparently learned of the sale to the Newhouse family only after New York Post biz writer Keith Kelly called to get reaction quotes.
Jossip