Saying Goodbye To Offspring, George

Offspring, "the magazine of smart parenting," and George, the politics-as-entertainment magazine created by JFK Jr., have called it quits recently.

Offspring, a Hearst Magazines and Dow Jones' Smart Money spin-off, was launched last March as a bimonthly. The December/January issue now on stands will be the last. The fifth issue (whose cover would have featured the daughter of photojournalist and Fortune photo editor Scott Thode and The New York Times Magazine's photo editor Kathy Ryan) was ready to go, but will not be printed, says freelance photo editor Hadas Dembo.

She says the magazine received lots of advertising, but circulation was not as high so the owners wanted to cut losses. "They were worried about the oncoming recession and didn't want to pump money into something that may not give returns," she adds.

"We felt there wasn't a strong commitment. They never said they'd go beyond the one-year commitment." Offspring was launched in the same year that saw O's phenomenal success, and since its numbers weren't as impressive, Dembo says she wasn't surprised when the January 3 closure was announced.

The magazine staff, she says, have no immediate plans and will stay on till the end of the month to clean up. "We're disappointed, but we felt that we put out four very solid issues. We felt good that we impacted the industry with those issues," Dembo says. "Too bad we weren't given an opportunity to make it a financial success on top of being a visual and editorial success."

George will fold after its March issue. The four-year-old magazine suffered from declining advertising, according to news reports. Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, which co-owned George, took full control of the magazine after Kennedy's death. The magazine's combination of politics and celebrity often confused readers and advertisers, and failed to pull in enough advertising.