BBC’s Live & Kicking Gives Up The Fight

BBC Worldwide is closing its monthly teen magazine Live & Kicking after the title saw a 41.7% decline in circulation in last week’s ABC results.

The title, which had its problems added to when the Saturday morning TV show on which it was based ended its run last Autumn, is to be replaced with a new monthly entertainment magazine aimed at the younger end of the teen market, called It’s Hot.

It’s Hot, which launches in April, will be produced by the existing Live & Kicking team, led by editor Peter Hart and editor in chief Jeremy Mark. The new magazine is intended to fill the gap left by Live & Kicking, which saw circulation drop to 67,784 in the six month period ending December 2001, down from 116,255 on the same period last year.

BBC Wordwide’s publishing director, Lindsaye Fox, said: “The new magazine will cover all the TV programmes its 9-13 year old readers want to read about, as well as providing other entertainment coverage. It will build on the successful elements of Live & Kicking magazine and will add several new ones.”

BBC Worldwide closed its teen celebrity title Star last October (see BBC’s Star Burns Out) and the demise of Live & Kicking follows a difficult period for the teen sector, in which every title apart from Natmags’ recently launched Cosmogirl! saw circulation decline (see Newsline). Attic Futura’s market leading title Sugar proved that it was not immune to the downturn, while BBC Wordwide’s only other teen title Top Of The Pops reported a drop of 19.6%.

BBC Worldwide: 020 8576 2000 www.beeb.com

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