Uninspired

Issue 60 of Scrapbook Inspirations (on sale 13 November 2009) will be the last monthly edition of the magazine.

As the Christmas issues hit the newsstand we can expect a slew of closures to be announced. Another Merry Christmas for the magazine industry!

Arriverderci

Italy magazine – “Your Bridge to Italy” – has gone ‘online only’. Ciao!

Busted Flush

Dennis Publishing has thrown in its hand with Inside Poker magazine.

Puzzle corner

A totally unsubstantiated rumour (my favourite kind) pops into the inbox. Apparently a publisher of puzzle titles is having a wee bit of trouble making its sums add up. More details welcomed from anyone with inside information.

That’s the way the money goes

A neat little summary in PaidContent on some of the bigger publishers’ financials.

• NatMags: a pre-tax loss of £42.8m in 2008 – compared with a £10.8m profit in 2007
• Haymarket: pre-tax profits down from £8m in 2007 to £4.5m in 2008
• Reed Business Information: Profits fell 47% in H109 to £39m.
• UBM: In the first half of 2009, UBM’s profits fell by more than a quarter year on year to £48m.
• Centaur: First-half profits fell by 88% year on year to £1.7m.
• Euromoney: The DMGT-owned publisher has said it will meet its 2008/09 profit target of £57m for the year to 30 September.
• Future: For its H109, announced in May, Future saw its profits fall 70% to £1.2m.
• Economist Group: For the year to March 31, operating profits were 26% higher year on year at £56m.

Think of the children

Sky Kids, the freebie distributed with Sky Magazine, has had its plug pulled.

Leaving Home

Unsurprisingly, given the state of the overseas property market, Homes Overseas magazine is giving up the struggle to stay in print and is going ‘online only’.

Look over there!

A good day to bury bad news? In case you missed this, what with the ABCs coming out and all:

Future Publishing has closed PSW magazine after 10 years

Titles you’d forgotten existed, part 2

An email trundles through cyberspace to bring news of (BBC) Good Homes magazine.

The title was ’sold’ to Kelsey Publishing earlier this year along with a handful of  staff to oversee three changeover issues. It now sits alongside Private Frazer’s favourites, “The Stationary Engine” and “Practical Reptile Keeping”.

Numpty Dumpty

A couple of weeks ago Private Frazer asked what sort of numpty would want to buy Front magazine.

Joyously, it’s worked out even better than anyone could have expected, (see this report in The Guardian) as we now have a failed title run by a management with no publishing experience. Get off the line, there’s a train wreck coming!