• by Gaetano Pollice , November 3, 2008

In these tough economic times (see Page 11), even the kings of publishing with the most luxurious offices must cut back to make ends meet. Yes, Hearst has shuttered its second magazine this year. This time, it threw CosmoGirl out of its big, shiny tower and onto her Abercrombie-clad behind.

The younger, more innocent sister of the nymphomaniac Cosmopolitan hit the high school scene in 1999 and rose to premiere mean-girl status, winning accolades like Adweek's "Startup of the Year" in 2000. But its most recent paid circulation amounted to only 1.4 million for the first half of this year, per the Audit Bureau of Circulations, a far cry from previous highs of 8 million, as touted on Hearst's Web site.

According to Hearst, the CosmoGirl subscriber base will roll into Seventeen, though cosmogirl.com will live on. comScore ranks the Hearst Teen Network (including seventeen.com and teenmag.com, among others) in the Top 10 trafficked entertainment sites. So Seventeen will now reign as queen bee of the Hearst cafeteria, while CosmoGirl sits in the back, lamenting having to sit with the Web geeks.