Several leading magazines, including Magill and In Dublin, are to close due to a severe downturn in the media sector.
Their publisher, Mr Mike Hogan, said falling advertising revenue and poor trading conditions meant it was no longer feasible to publish the titles. Irish Wedding & New Home and High Ball magazines are also closing.
The closure of In Dublin and Magill brings to an end a long colourful era in magazine publishing, with both titles often making the news rather than just reporting it.
Mr Hogan said over the last six months he sought to find a buyer for the stable of titles, but no offers were submitted. The company which publishes them, Ink Publishing, made a loss of €1.3 million, according to accounts for the year to December 2001. A creditors' meeting is expected later this month.
Mr Hogan said the decision was taken with regret, but the financial losses were not sustainable.
He said competition in publishing was now more intense. "When I started off magazines had plenty of space in the market, but with newspapers increasingly crowding into the market, things have changed radically."
He said the general downturn in the economy also played a part. "As everyone knows, advertising budgets have been cut throughout the industry, and that has to take a toll eventually."
Mr Hogan said 12 full-time staff would be lose their jobs because of the decision. The rest of the magazines' material was generated by freelance journalists.
In April the downturn in the advertising industry was cited as the main reason for the closure of the women's magazine Who, which Mr Hogan also published.
The magazine attempted to compete with British celebrity titles like Now, but found it difficult to compete on cover price.
The Irish magazine sector is currently under serious financial pressure, with several publishers posting large losses.
The lack of advertising revenue is the main cause, and some observers believe there are too many titles in the market. The admission last year that certain titles owned by the Smurfit Group had overstated their circulations also damaged the sector.
However, in recent times the industry has pointed to greater regulation, and attempted to convince advertisers that advertising in magazines represents better value than other media options.
Magill and In Dublin: a potted history
For magazines with relatively modest circulations, Magill and In Dublin have certainly created plenty of controversies over the last 20 years.
Magill in particular has a distinguished record for breaking controversial political stories. From the arms trial to planning corruption in Dublin, the magazine has managed to regularly beat the national press to ground-breaking stories. The magazine's sardonic tone and constant harassment of politicians has been its unique selling point.
However, Magill and In Dublin were both creations of the 1970s and early 1980s, and neither publication has managed to achieve lasting commercial success since those heady days.
In fact in recent years journalism at Magill has cost publisher Mr Mike Hogan serious money. In May 2002, for instance, Magill was forced to pay €25,000 to a charity and to apologise to the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, for a "seriously defamatory" article. Legal costs for Magill were estimated at the time at over €110,000.
The magazine in the 1980s was edited by some leading journalists, among them Vincent Browne, Fintan O'Toole, John Waters, Brian Trench and Colm Toibin. Among its favourite pre-occupations was the finances of former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey. The publication of diaries by former Department of Justice secretary general Mr Peter Berry gained the magazine great kudos.
Magill was relaunched in August 1997 after a six-year gap by Vincent Browne and journalist John Ryan. It immediately put itself back centre-stage with exclusive revelations about DIRT tax evasion and Allied Irish Banks. It also produced stories concerning planning corruption in north Co Dublin, and these were subsequently investigated by the Flood tribunal.
In Dublin started life as a counter-cultural listings magazine, but in the 1990s most of its notoriety sprang from its decision to carry highly-suggestive adult advertising.
In August 1999 this led to the Censorship of Publications Board banning the magazine because a number of its editions were "usually or frequently indecent or obscene". Suggestions that some of the advertisements might have encouraged prostitution caused a furore. In October 2000, Mr Hogan had a €63,000 fine imposed on him in the Dublin Criminal Court for publishing adverts promoting brothels and prostitution. - Emmet Oliver