Archant is to close six of its regional monthly lifestyle magazines following a review of its businesses, putting 19 jobs at risk
Archant Life titles in Herefordshire & Wye Valley, the North East, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire are set to close following the publication of their June editions.
Miller Hogg, managing director of Archant Life, left the door open for the possible relaunch of the titles if local economic conditions improved. In the meantime, it will look to broaden the geographic scope of the remaining magazines in the series.
Hogg said: “In the current economic climate and looking at the performance of these titles, we have concluded the best option for us is to suspend publishing in print until the economy picks back up and the local economies in each of the publishing areas can sustain the re-launch of these titles to the quality we desire.
“We will also look to provide a service to readers and advertisers in as many of the areas affected as possible with our other Life magazine titles, such as Cotswold Life.
“This decision has not been taken lightly and we will be consulting with the teams affected to explore ways of creating new roles where viable and minimising job losses.”
A consultation with staff has now been concluded with the total number of redundancies expected to be finalised shortly.
Following the closures the Archant subsidiary will boast a stable of 14 county-based lifestyle magazines alongside a handful of other publications and associated websites.
Last October, Joanne Goodwin was appointed as group editor for the Herefordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire titles. It is not yet known whether her role is one of those affected.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
