Jane was the anti-Glamour — Condé Nast folded it when the difference faded

Jane Pratt launched Jane in 1997, two years after Sassy died — the same acceptance-first voice, aimed up at single women in their twenties, published by Condé Nast. It peaked in 2004: 740,000 circulation and roughly $46M in estimated ad revenue, proof that an alternative women's magazine could carry mainstream numbers.

Pratt left in 2005, and the magazine drifted toward celebrity covers — Ashlee Simpson, Avril Lavigne — and a safer, blander register. Its founding premise had been that readers were real rather than aspirational, but read another way that meant readers were broke, which advertisers stopped forgiving. Competition pressed from both sides: Lucky and Domino took the shopping reader, Us Weekly and People took the celebrity reader, and the audience's attention moved online faster than Jane did.

Condé Nast announced the fold on July 9, 2007, with ad pages down 20.9% the previous year and circulation at 700,000. Publisher Carlos Lamadrid protested the arithmetic: 'We had been given a number for ad sales, and we were actually performing to that number.' Pratt herself delivered the diagnosis: at the newsstand, 'someone would look at Glamour and look at Jane and think there's not a noticeable difference between them. It's possible there isn't as much of a need for women's magazines.'