ON Friday of last week, the brass at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia summoned the faithful to the Wall Street ritual of a quarterly earnings conference call. Their purpose: to deny the undeniable - that with Martha Stewart now headed for prison, the company she leaves behind will be lucky to survive as even a shadow of its former self.

WHEN the Martha Stewart scandal erupted in June 2002, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia had just reported quarterly revenues of $68.7 million for the three-month period ended March 31, 2002, along with $2.9 million of net income and an equal amount in positive cash flow from its various operations.

UNFORTUNATELY, it is not Stewart herself, but her name, that haunts the magazine, and its attachment to the publication is never going to disappear. Gestures such as [Sharon Patrick]'s plan to turn a long- standing monthly feature of Martha's reminiscences into a freelance contributors' page will accomplish nothing except to alienate die- hard Martha loyalists without attracting any new readers.