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Johannesburg - Magazine publishing giant Media24 shut down two of its magazines which, three months ago, were caught up in a massive sales-figures scam, The Times online reported on Monday.
"The company announced at the weekend that it had closed down InStyle and The Wisden Cricketer because the magazines were no longer considered to be commercially viable," the report said.
Media24 Magazines owns 60 titles, including You, Huisgenoot and Drum, and claims to sell more than 5.9m magazines a month.
In September, Media24 was forced to restate the circulation figures for its women's titles True Love Babe, InStyle SA, True Love, Leef, Fair Lady, Sarie and True Love Bride after a routine audit uncovered inflated circulation figures, the report said.
InStyle SA, the publisher's newest title, had its sales figures pushed up by as much as 45.9% for measured six-month periods.
After the discovery of the scam, Media24's women's magazine division was forced to undertake a massive independent audit of the sales figures of all its publications, which led to the discovery of similar, but smaller, circulation inflations at the Touchline Media titles Men's Health, Sports Illustrated, Shape, The Wisden Cricketer and Kick Off, The Times said.
Suspended
All 12 affected magazine titles were then suspended by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The fallout of the scam claimed the scalps of six employees at Media24's women's magazine division and three at subsidiary Touchline Media.
Charlene Beukes, publisher of InStyle, said the decision to pull the plug on the magazine, which was launched last December, was due to "changing market conditions".
"Initially, advertising opportunities looked promising but the market conditions changed," she told The Times.
"The closure is a market- related decision. [We] have reached the conclusion that the market will not support the business expectations that we have set for the title."
Beukes said the closure wasn't due to the circulation debacle, but said it had "had an effect" on the magazine.
The January issue of InStyle would be the last, and permanent employees would be redeployed within the company.
Andrew Sneddon, of Touchline, could not be reached for comment on the closure of The Wisden Cricketer, The Times said.
Fin24 is a business division of 24.com, which is part of the Naspers group of companies.
- Sapa