Sainsbury’s mag forces closure of IPC’s Living

Sainsbury’s The Magazine has claimed its first victim with the closure of Living magazine by IPC, which was first published in 1967.

The monthly women’s “practical” or checkout title will be merged with IPC’s older women’s monthly magazine Woman & Home from the February 1996 issue.

Living has suffered successive falls in circulation since the launch of Sainsbury’s The Magazine in May 1993.

Living sold 170,433 at the time of The Magazine’s launch during the 1993 January-June ABC period. This fell to 111,328 during January-June 1995, a fall of 34 per cent over two years.

Sources maintain sales have continued to decline during the second half of this year to below 90,000. Sainsbury’s The Magazine sold 304,630 in the last ABC period.

Living also suffered after Tesco cleared magazines from its check-outs in 1993. IPC’s Family Circle and Essentials have also lost sales.

The weakness of the three titles has been cited by IPC sources as the reason for the replacement of IPC SouthBank Group managing director Colin Reeve-Smith in June with Nigel Davidson, managing director of IPC Weeklies Group.

“The market has become more competitive,” says Davidson. “We tried very hard with Living; the distribution problems wouldn’t have affected a magazine that was going to survive anyway. Essentials and Family Circle have a healthy future.”

IPC says staff from Living will be found jobs within the company.