Emap Petersen is "suspending publication" of Sport
magazine after the August issue, according to Keith Kelly of
the N.Y. POST. The company said that Philip Morris'
decision to pull cigarette ads from the magazine
"contributed to the decision." Sources said that Sport lost
$1-2M in '99, but without the Philip Morris ads, the losses
"were likely to double." Before losing Philip Morris, Sport
"appeared to be struggling" for ads. Through May this year,
Sport's ad pages were down 24% to 103.2 total, while its ad
revenues "plunged" 23.2% to $4.9M. Former Sport President
Polly Perkins: "Sport was caught -- it was developing a
younger, hipper base, but it had advertisers that wanted an
older audience." Emap Petersen Metro Group President Marcus
Rich: "It was not so much a matter of losing a lot of money
as it was the future prospects -- what direction was this 1
million circulation, horizontal publication going in?" Rich
said that the company "planned to invest instead in its
niche publications," such as NFL Insider and Slam. Kelly
adds that Sport "never developed a Web site," and "insiders"
said that talks with Rivals.com and "several other" online
companies had "stalled" (N.Y. POST, 6/27).