ACP Magazines to close more titles

ACP Magazines will close more underperforming titles, its Chief Executive Matt Stanton has warned.

Addressing an Australian Women’s Weekly lunch, Stanton said: “We will continue to create, curate and commercialise our content in an even more targeted and progressive way. We will continue to launch new magazines with Women’s Fitness, and to reinvent old magazines as we're doing with PC User moving into TechLife. We will close some magazines down which we do not think are relevant going forward or we do not see are commercially viable.”

It follows the decision by the publisher to close FHM earlier this month after sales of the men’s title dropped by almost half in the six months ending December last year. It has also decided to put on hold plans to launch women’s title Elle.

In defense of print titles, Stanton said that advertisers' emphasis on reach had been allowed to overshadow engagement - magazines' "real strong suit". He did, however, stress that ACP would continue to look to new ways to leverage its brands and communities across "the relevant platforms".