New Pop Paper Soon Pulped

The new magazine associated with Channel 4’s "Popworld" show has folded week one, after failing to hit 15 percent of its initial circulation target.

Darren Styles of Brooklands Group publishers, which has spent more than a year planning the launch of Pulp, a pop magazine aimed at 16- to 24-year-olds, has been quoted saying, "The magazine has bombed in a way nobody connected with it could ever have envisaged."

The first issue of the mag, which had a cover price of £1.49p and had been heavily trailed on TV, radio and the Internet, had a print run of 130,000 copies but only sold 9,000.

Brooklands targeted a long-term circulation of 40,000 and launch sales of around 60,000.

"Every piece of research we did, every dummy we created and the concept in all its forms was fantastically received from first to last," Styles explained.

"The industry wanted it, the news trade wanted it, the market was there according to every group we asked – but come the acid test the readers were absent.

"Which makes continuation impossible for us – however brutal a rush to judgment that may seem."

Ten of the magazine’s 14 staff have been laid off.

The failure of Pulp follows the closure of the 28-year-old Smash Hits magazine in 2006. Its publishers said teenagers were increasingly turning to new platforms like the Internet to satisfy their interest in music.