Eve magazine set to close

by Tristan O'Carroll, Media Week 04-Sep-08, 15:55

LONDON - Women's monthly magazine Eve is set to close after owner Haymarket decided it is not feasible to continue publishing the title.

The decision follows a review of the Eve portfolio by Haymarket Media Group, which also owns Media Week.

Haymarket Consumer Media managing director Kevin Costello said that, despite the Eve team's best efforts, "Eve is making an unsustainable level of loss that is exacerbated by the recent ABC decline, the continuing strength of its key competitors and uncertain conditions within the UK economy generally".

Eve staff were informed of the decision today and have been told that they are at risk of redundancy and are entering into a period of formal consultation, which ends in October - 56 employees are in consultation, of which 30 work in editorial.

Haymarket said that "during this time, the management will explore any ideas and proposals put forward by affected staff to lessen the impact of closing Eve". It is understood that Haymarket has been seeking a buyer for the title, but has so far not been able to strike a deal.

The magazine's online brand extension Evecars.com and its four staff are not affected by the planned closure of the print title.

Eve was acquired by Haymarket Media Group from BBC Worldwide in January 2005 for an undisclosed fee. Haymarket took over publishing responsibility for Eve with the April 2005 issue.

In December 2007, Eve appointed former OK! editor Nic McCarthy as editor. She succeeded Sara Cremer, who joined customer publisher Redwood as editorial director.

This May, the title underwent a revamp in an attempt to attract more premium advertisers and woo new readers. The revamped title hit news-stands in the first week of May, featuring a new logo and editorial, plus the use of new headline and body texts.

However, the relaunch failed to arrest a circulation decline. Over the first half of 2008, according to the latest magazine ABCs, Eve's average monthly circulation fell 5.1% year on year, to 155,076 copies. Rivals such as She, however, managed to increase circulation by 2.5% year on year.

Comments

Lindsay Smyth - 08/09/2008

I'm not surprised - I bought it once and it couldn't compete with SHE or Red. I was also sure I read an article in it that had I'd read before. A disappointing read and it just didn't stand out or differentiate itself.

Fiona Morris - 25/01/2009

Neither am I surprised. I used to subscribe to the magazine though - when it was owned by the BBC. It went downhill when Haymarket took it over - lost its vision & focus, I thought. When I stopped subscribing in September, because they had missed sending me 2 editions, I had no idea they were in trouble.