'Nuts' Magazine To Close As Sales Drop From 300,000 To 50,000 In 10 Years

IPC Media is to close Nuts magazine, the weekly lads' mag that once sold more than 300,000 copies an issue.

IPC Media is to close Nuts magazine, in the latest sign that weekly magazine publishing is struggling to make ends meet in an increasingly digital age.

IPC Media

The company confirmed to us today that 25 jobs are to be made redundant - a statutory 30-day consultation period is underway.

Paul Williams, MD of IPC's Inspire division, says: "After 10 years at the top of its market, we have taken the difficult decision to propose the closure of Nuts and exit the young men’s lifestyle sector. IPC will provide impacted staff with all the support they need during the consultation process."

Soon after it launched in 2004, Nuts magazine became a phenomenon, selling more than 300,000 copies a week. Along with its rival Zoo, it created an entirely new magazine sector - the weekly lads' mag, full of boobs, sporting trivia, gross-out pictures and terrible jokes.

In the last half of 2013 it sold 53,000 copies an issue, a drop of 33 percent year on year. It wouldn't take that long at that rate of decline to get to 0.

The magazine's decline and that of its rival, Zoo, has going on for years.

Key dates on that timeline:

- Facebook launched in 2004

- Apple's iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

- Internet advertising takes over from TV as biggest UK advertising segment in 2009.

It's a completely different industry we have today compared to 10 years ago. Its target audience has become the social media generation - it's hard to think how a weekly magazine can stay relevant when people spend their time on Snapchat and Instagram.

And when your stock-in-trade is high quality pictures of women not wearing very much, there's a whole internet full of that stuff out there. The magazine industry has always hoped that a professionally crafted bundle of stuff will be more popular than whatever is available out there for free.

It's the same picture across the once-powerful teenage and young adult magazine sector.

ABC / Via buzzfeed.com

We're still finding out what youth-focused media looks like in the 21st century - but for young men, it doesn't look like a weekly magazine.