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May 14, 2018

Time Inc UK closes Look magazine after 11 years blaming ‘continuing pressure’ on sales

By Charlotte Tobitt

Time Inc UK has announced it is closing women’s magazine Look after “continuing pressure” on sales due to changing reader habits.

The final edition of the fashion and celebrity weekly, which launched in February 2007, will be published on 29 May and its website will close in the following weeks.

Time Inc UK has said it will focus “even greater efforts” on its flagship women’s brand Marie Claire following Look’s closure.

Look sold well over 300,000 copies each week at its peak, but now has a circulation of 57,110, according to the latest ABC figures.

The magazine saw the biggest year-on-year decline – 37 per cent – of any UK women’s magazine over the six month period to the end of December 2017.

During the same period Marie Claire saw a circulation of 157,412 and year-on-year growth of 2 per cent.

Justine Southall, Time Inc UK’s managing director, fashion and beauty, blamed Look’s decline on its audience increasingly getting similar content from multiple online sources.

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“When Look launched in 2007, it was a publishing phenomenon and sold more than 300,000 copies a week at its peak,” Southall said.

“But Look’s audience behaves very differently today. They’re consuming media via screens and accessing numerous digital sources for fashion and celebrity content.

“Facing these circumstances and a continuing pressure on sales, we have taken the difficult decision to close the brand.

“We will now be focusing even greater efforts and activity on our iconic Marie Claire brand, as we celebrate its very special 30th birthday and new Woman Kind initiative championing women and their power to change the world together.”

In February, Time Inc UK sold its magazine and digital portfolio to private equity firm Epiris Fund II for an undisclosed sum.

Chris Hanna, partner at Epiris, said at the time the firm intended to “bring clarity and simplicity” to the business to maximise “the potential of its high-quality portfolio”.

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