Men’s weekly Cut has finally been given the chop after a 30-day consultation period in which publisher H Bauer considered the future of the title.
Launched four months ago, the magazine was intended to compete with Emap’s Zoo and IPC’s Nuts, but always remained a poor third in the sales race.
In October, Cut’s sales figures were believed to be about 20,000 a week, compared with 270,000 for Nuts.
Managing director David Goodchild said: “Cut was an exploration of new territory for the company. The intent was to provide men with an alternative weekly read to the lads’ weeklies.
“The decision to close the magazine was not taken lightly, but in a highly competitive and promotionally led market, commercial decisions have to be constantly reviewed and unfortunately there will be casualties.
“We have no intention of stopping our intensive development programme and would hope to redeploy many of the staff from Cut in other projects or existing titles.”
For Nuts and Zoo, however, success has continued with the publication of the two magazines’ first readership survey.
Nuts reached an estimated 4.2 per cent of men in the UK this year, while Zoo reached 3.4 per cent.
By Alyson Fixter
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