Publishing Of Aura And Wedding Day Suspended As Parkhill Looks To Liquidation

Parkhill Publishing is said to have suspended publishing of its two titles Aura and Wedding Day and is thought to be applying for voluntary liquidation. Rumours have been rife in recent weeks that the two titles forming Eve Pollard’s venture into publishing were failing to gain readers and therefore losing advertisers’ confidence. It appears that the fledgling company could not find sufficient backing to launch new titles or promote existing sales. Telephones at the company were not being answered today, therefore no comment could be gained.

Parkhill may be looking to sell the titles on. If they turn out to be a viable prospect, IPC could be a possible buyer, having lost out to NatMags in its bid to buy Gruner & Jahr earlier this month (see NatMags Grabs Gruner and Jahr).

Aura launched in April into an increasingly crowded market (see First Issue Review: Aura: Jaffa Cake Years). Aimed at older women, it was unusual in its glamourous, rather than domesticated, approach. It wouldn’t have been alone for long, however, as next Thursday sees BBC Worldwide unleash Eve, its first women’s interest magazine, onto the news-stands (see Interview: All About Eve – Editor Gill Hudson On Launching A New Women’s Title).

As with Aura, big promises about breaking the mould have been made about this new title, generally expected to be for the thirty-plus woman. Having big guns such as former New Woman and Maxim editor Gill Hudson on board has been enough for Eve to rattle Emap Elan, which is launching a £1m TV campaign to promote Red, its own thirty-something title, on the same day as the BBC title launches.

Women’s healthstyle title Bare, from John Brown, is set to join the fray shortly afterwards, but yet another women’s monthly, Gruner & Jahr’s Project Florence now seems unlikely to materialise following the company’s merger with the women’s-title-rich NatMags. The question left by Aura is whether the women’s monthly magazine market is groaning as much as the newsagents’ shelves under the weight of so many titles?

Parkhill Publishing: 020 7269 7400