Conde Nast To Close Gourmet

The print death spiral continues. Today Conde Nast will announce the shuttering of its venerable Gourmet Magazine and three other titles.

The magazine has suffered a severe decline in ad pages, but the cut still comes as a shock. There was speculation that Conde Nast would close one of its food titles — Gourmet or Bon Appétit — but most bets were on the latter. Gourmet has a richer history than Bon Appétit, and its editor Ruth Reichl is powerful in the food world. In addition to Gourmet, Condé Nast plans to announce this morning it will also close Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. Cookie is a relatively new introduction, started in 2005, while the bridal magazines were seen as offshoots of the bigger Brides magazine, which Condé Nast also owns.

Gourmet has been published for 69 years.