Metropolitan Home Magazine To Close

ANDREW VANACORE

NEW YORK (AP) — Metropolitan Home will cease publication with its December issue, the latest home decor magazine to succumb to the industry's advertising slump.

The magazine, owned by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., had a circulation of a little more than 560,000 at last count.

But the number of ad pages the magazine sold in the third quarter fell almost 36 percent from the previous year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

The long recession has put a crippling dent in marketing budgets just as print faces intensifying competition on the Web, forcing magazine owners to trim costs and shutter money-losing titles.

Magazines in nearly every category have fallen this year, from Conde Nast's business glossy Portfolio and food title Gourmet to the hip-hop and urban culture magazine Vibe.

Recent closures in home decorating include Conde Nast's Domino and Time Inc.'s Southern Accents among others.

Hachette said it will put its resources into Elle Decor, another luxury design magazine.

Elle Decor has a slightly smaller readership, with a circulation of roughly 520,000. Its ad decline in the third quarter was even worse than Metropolitan Home's at 47 percent, according to Publishers Information Bureau figures.