Jane magazine RIP
A magazine that a lot of people liked a few years back was Jane. Well, Jane is no more and word is that the staff are clearing out their desks today at Condé Nast in New York and the magazine's current issue, 90% complete, won't be circulated. This, according to a report in Gawker, the New York media blog.The magazine was at its most popular when its eponymous editor was Jane Pratt, (who also helped create the late Sassy magazine). [Aside: Pratt was going to call the magazine Betty, but was talked out of it.] It was published starting in 1997 by Fairchild Publications, a division of Disney; Fairchild later merged with Condé Nast. Jane was aimed at 20ish young women who had grown up with Sassy and were heartbroken at its demise in 1994, according to a Wikipedia entry.
Pratt left Jane in 2005.
Labels: closures
posted by D. B. Scott at
1:21 pm
3 Comments:
This is a dire sign for the women's category. Suppodedly a demo in demand, Jane's demise sends the message that...um, thinking young women are not rabid consumers, or at least consumers of sufficient heft to merit ads in Jane.
When a magazine folds it's not because readers stopped buying it (or, is it? We all rememeber Fabrice Taylor's Frank), it's because advertisers stopped throwing money at it. Chicken/ egg. Which is it in this case?
Methinks egg. That is, advertisers. And that means that media agency buyers saw Jane as a lame duck.
I wonder what, if anything, will come along to replace it and provide female readers of a nubile age with a read that's as clever as GQ and Esquire. Because we all know that women's mags are about one thing: shopping. Women shop. It's a fact. It'll never change. And that's where the money is. When thinking women (and I'm not talking about Lisa Tant or Jeanne Beker or Rita Silvan) put out a serious magazine for other thinking women (good bye Elm Street, thanks for the ride Gwen Smith), where'll be the demand? Women don't like to "think." That's a fact, call me a old-fashioned if you like. Women feel.
And feeling is hard to capture in a magazine. Although, ironically, men's mag editors are exceedingly good at it. Hence the demand. It is one of the great paradoxes of publishing.
-- The Old Fart
This is awful for so many reasons. Jane was the last even vaguely thoughtful women's glossy and now any thinking woman in her twenties will be hard pressed to find anything even vaguely interesting or intelligent on the newsstand that is not a independent feminist mag. I suppose I'll be forced to do quizes of how to be "hot" and read articles on "how to please my man."
As someone who grew up with Sassy, got old enough to understand why it fell apart, and then went into circulation to prove that smart mags for women could be successful, I am more than disappointed. In fact, there is a tear in my eye, because, as the previous poster commented, I am "feeling" the loss.
Yes, Jane used to be a little more thoughtful than other "hot or not" women's magazines...but it started going downhill about a year ago -- new editor, new look, more shopping focus, shorter articles.. looks like they worked themselves out of their own niche to me. They became just another girly fashion mag guilty pleaseure for the most part.
for those of your who are crying over this one...why not bust? or even marie claire for that matter? i don't get the nostalgia.
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