Can Jane be Jane without Jane?

“The magazine should be called ‘Brandon,’ after the new editor. Jane doesn’t exist. Jane has left the building,” says Robin Steinberg, director of print services for Publicis Groupe’s MediaVest…”I will definitely monitor to understand the audience’s reaction,” she adds. Today’s Wall Street Journal weighed in:

Tradition says that magazines named for their editors tend not to survive for any significant period of time without those editors,” says Roberta Garfinkle, director of print strategy at TargetCast tcm. Indeed, Mirabella, a women’s magazine launched by former Vogue editor Grace Mirabella, lasted five years after Lagardère’s Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. acquired it from News Corp. in 1995. Ms. Mirabella gave up her role as editor in chief of the magazine before it was sold to Hachette.

But some media buyers wonder whether Jane, whose ad pages have been relatively flat lately, may be better off with Ms.Brandon Holley. Jane’s total paid circulation for the first six months of 2005 was off 4.5%. Although newsstand sales were up 15.6% for the period, that came only after Jane cut its newsstand cover price.

Fairchild is working to bolster Ms. Holley. The publisher took out a six-page ad in its own Women’s Wear Daily touting the editor and playing up her “Jane” personality. “Music-obsessed? Check,” reads the ad, which says of Ms. Holley, “She’s so Jane.” Fairchild planned to stencil Jane-related phrases on sidewalks outside certain advertisers and media-buying firms last night.