Condé Nast Axing Gourmet, 3 Other Titles

Sidney Harman assumes magazine's growing losses

(NEWSER) - Sidney Harman has agreed to buy Newsweek, Advertising Age reports . The 91-year-old stereo-equipment magnate, who is married to Democratic Rep.Jane Harman, will essentially pay nothing for the magazine—the real cost comes in assuming Newsweek's liabilities, which could top $70 million this year. The Washington Post Co. has been looking for a buyer for Newsweek since May, when it announced the magazine would lose money again this year. More»

Online newsstand to combat slumping sales

(NEWSER) - The latest bid to save magazine publishing may soon have readers browsing the online racks of an iTunes-style newsstand. Major magazine publishers including Time Inc. and Conde Nast hope to exert some control over digital readership with a joint venture enabling readers to buy copies of the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and many other mags from a single website, the New York Times reports. More»

Publishing giant makes 'very bizarre' venture into new business

(NEWSER) - OK, so Gourmet wasn't working out, seven staffers at Glamour were just given the boot, and the remaining mags in Conde Nast's stable are slashing up to 25% of their budgets. But obviously the time is ripe for Conde Nast to launch…an online dating site, the New York Daily News reports. The new TrulyMadlyDating.com—in true Conde Nast style—promises to “unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven,” for $30 a month. More»

There is no 'hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind' of editorial experience on the Web

(NEWSER) - When Gourmet magazine absorbed his Cook’s in 1990, Christopher Kimball discovered the hard way that the publishing business is “a top-down, winner-take-all proposition, an oligarchy of sorts.” But the frazzling encounter also afforded him a meeting with Conde Nast chairman Si Newshouse, who “poured his fortune into his magazine properties and his editors, even when the prospect of return seemed dim.” Newhouse—and Gourmet—had “respect for those who had earned the chops.” More»

(NEWSER) - Cookie and Modern Bride are getting the ax, but it's Conde Nast's shuttering of Gourmet that has floored and disappointed readers and non-readers alike. That includes Fast Company's Kate Rockwood, who shares a few ideas for keeping America's oldest food magazine alive—in some form.

• Move to television: One show (Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie) already airs on PBS, and another (Gourmet's Adventures with Ruth) is in the works.