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February 26, 2007updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

Front makes a comeback in Flip portfolio

By Press Gazette

Front and DVD World are back in business after their sale in the break-up of SMD Publishing, which went into administration earlier this month.

The company was a start-up from adult magazine publisher Remnant Media, which also published Attitude.

SMD bought Front, DVD World and Hotdog in the demise of Highbury House in January 2006.

SMD was thought to be in financial crisis last year when it closed Hotdog and did not print the January 2007 edition Front.

Attitude, which also failed to appear on the New Year newsstand, has since been sold to another start-up company, Giant Clipper, run by Simon McKay, a former business development manager in Trinity Mirror's national sales operation.

Flip Media has bought Front, DVD World and the rights to Hotdog. Former managing editor Rich Olsen, has taken on the role of publishing director on across the titles.

Olsen confirmed that Front and DVD World would be back on the shelves from 28 February and said that the company would consider reprising Hotdog next year. "We can now give Front and DVD World the attention they deserve.

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At the old publishing house they were basically left to their own devices and the sales reflect that," he said.

A number of contributors, including Front and DVD World staff, are said to be owed money from SMD.

Olsen said the new company would seek to rebuild confidence with both advertisers, readers and contributors to the titles, but Flip had not taken on SMD's debt in the sale.

He added that it would work on getting an online presence for Front and that it had changed its distribution company. Joe Barnes remains editor of the lads' mag which has also promised to return to raunchy content after a toning down last summer, under then editor Johnny Sharp.

At the time, Sharp told Press Gazette that the title was being made "a scapegoat"

by supermarkets, which saw the magazine prior to publication for approval, with some pulling it for being too explicit.

Remnant Media was established in March 2004, when the company bought 45 adult titles from Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell. The largest shareholder in the company was chief executive Simon Robinson who held the same position with SMD Publishing.

Robinson is understood to have left the publishers in the last month.

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