Hello! magazine editor-in-chief Maria Trkulja departs

Her departure next month follows a decision to reorganise the business, which sees Sanchez Junco take on an increased role in the major editorial decisions on the celebrity magazine.

"Maria has made a valuable contribution during her time at Hello!, and we are sorry that we have not been able to persuade her to stay on after the reorganisation. We wish her well for the future," Sanchez Junco said.

However, her editorship was thought to have been seriously wounded by the Catherine Zeta-Jones case sparking the reorganisation.

Zeta-Jones and her husband, Michael Douglas, are claiming £500,000 damages from Hello! magazine after it published unauthorised pictures of their wedding at the New York Plaza Hotel in November 2000.

Hello! was attempting to steal the thunder from rival celebrity title OK!, published by Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell, which signed a £1m deal with the stars for exclusive coverage of the event. OK! in turn is suing Hello! for £1.75m for loss of sales.

Last week, the case paused as the judge reserved judgment, but gave no indication when he would make his ruling in a case that had been scheduled to last between two to three weeks but went on to last six.

The Zeta-Jones story was part of a strategy by rival OK! that has seen it triumph in the circulation wars. In the most recent set of ABCs, OK! achieved a 10% period-on-period increase to 632,791, a year-on-year jump of 30%. Hello, up 5.6%, was a long way behind on 546,952.

Trkulja leaves the magazine's top editorial job less than year after she joined to replace Phil Hall, who departed for Press Association's contract publishing division where he was managing director and editor and, most recently, surfacing as editorial development director at Trinity Mirror.

Trkulja, who was a former deputy editor of IPC Media's celebrity title Now, joined Hello! from Associated Paper's femail.co.uk, where she was launch editor. She was previously editor of shopping portal Zoom.

According to Trkulja: "I have enjoyed my time at Hello!, but the change in the role for the editor-in-chief consequent upon the proposed reorganisation does not fit in with my career plans and aspirations. I leave wishing the business well for the future."

Hello! is set to make a decision shortly about her replacement. Last year, it was rumoured that Amanda Platell, William Hague's former spin doctor and former editor of the Sunday Mirror and Sunday Express, was to take over the editorship of the celebrity magazine.

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