The head of Condé Nast International Jonathan Newhouse said “serious business challenges” and “difficulties which could not have been foreseen even a short time ago” were to blame for the decision, news agency AP reported. “In a normal economic climate, we would have bravely carried on publishing Vanity Fair,” Newhouse said. “In today’s bleak economic climate, it is impossible.”
Newhouse had said as late as December, when new leader Bernd Runge stepped in, that the fashion and lifestyle magazine with a weekly circulation of 200,000 would power through the global economy crisis.
The magazine will shut down offices in Berlin and Munich, but Condé Nast could not say how many jobs would be affected or how many people would be moved to other titles owned the publisher.
The magazine was launched to much fanfare in February of 2007, but it quickly disappointed high expectations in German media circles. But Newhouse said Vanity Fair employees could be proud of the work they’d done.