Hugo Restall, the editor since late 2004, will keep his job on the WSJ Editorial Board; his small staff of six is being offered jobs elsewhere in the company, according to spokesman Robert Christie. The website will be shut down with its archives available through asia.wsj.com. As for the brand, says Christie, “It all comes to an end. It goes on long-term hiatus. We may at some point revisit it, but not likely any point in the near future.” He couldn’t provide a dollar amount for the losses but said it was losing too much money for its circulation of about 20,000.

The move comes five years after a complete overhaul gutted the China-based magazine, turning it into a monthly rather than a staff-written weekly, well before DJ was acquired by News Corp. and Peter Kann was still chairman and CEO. For some, the magazine effectively died then. The Pacific Media Watch called it “death-by-corporate-downsizing” Murdoch’s interests in expanding in Asia and in coverage of Asia may have helped it survive until now. 

Meanwhile, feer.com is still promoting subscriptions and the Twitter feed has yet to pass along the news; the last update was 20 hours ago as I type. The WSJ has the news.