Metropolitan Home magazine to close

[This post has been updated] The latest casualty among U.S. magazines is the shelter title Metropolitan Home. According to a blog posting by Ad Age media columnist Simon Dumenco, a press release from Hachette Fillipacchi, is announcing that December will be the magazine's last issue. 

[Update: According to a story in Folio: the company's efforts will be concentrated on Elle Decor, instead. The editorial team, editor-in-chief Donna Warner and 12 other editorial staffers are losing their jobs. The magazine's website will essentially disappear, subsumed under the Elle Decor brand.

Alain Lemarchand, president and CEO, made the announcement this morning in a release, which said that resources will be applied to Elle Decor instead. Lemarchand said Elle Decor is the ad-page leader in the U.S. When contacted, a spokesperson said Metropolitan Home was third in its category.

Met Home, which started out as a hip, youthful alternative to such heavy hitters as House & Garden magazine, has a rate base of 550,000. Its newsstand has shrunk from 9.5% to 7.6%, or about 42,000 single copy sales. Ad pages have shrunk about 33% over the past year, or about 466 pages.]