Publisher ceases two magazines

BOULDER — The publisher of Women’s Sports + Fitness magazine has closed down two newer magazine products to concentrate on existing profitable ones.

Publishing has been suspended on Gravity, a magazine targeting extreme sports, and Inline Hockey News, an hockey industry publication launched three years ago. Seven employees were given severance pay and laid off at Sports and Fitness Publishing when the decision was made, said Scott Soden, the company’s interim chief executive officer.

“They just weren’t achieving their goals financially or going where we wanted to go,” Soden said.

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Sports and Fitness will continue InLine — The Skate Magazine and Box, an aggressive inline skating magazine targeted toward a younger age group. It also will concentrate on its premier publication — Women’s Sports + Fitness, a 250,000-circulation magazine, which in the last year saw challenges from the new Sports for Women Conde Nast publication and WomenSports, published by Sports Illustrated.

“They gave credibility to the market Sports and Fitness has been in alone,” Soden said. “We’ve seen the greater benefits.”

Soden and Daemon Filson, corporate group publisher, declined to say how much money the magazines were losing. Filson said, however, that larger companies like Conde Nast posted start-up costs of $40 million for their nationally launched products. Sports and Fitness Publishing expects to do business of $8 million in 1997.

“Newsstands have been consolidating,” Soden said. “Newsstand economics make it harder for a smaller publication to start. Years ago, you could start a small publication and throw it on a newsstand.”

The Gravity Sports Film Festival will continue — scheduled this year for Oct. 22-24 at the Boulder Theater. Television tie-ins to the film festival, like a half-hour special with ESPN this year, also may continue.

Sports and Fitness will continue to publish InLine Retailer & Industry News. It also publishes two “annuals” related to the women’s sports field: h.s. Sports and Women’s Sports on Campus.