Sky rejects contract publishing option and takes mag in-house

Sky will take on up to 30 Skymag staff currently employed by News Magazines.

The move follows news first revealed by Media Week of the planned closure of Chelsea-based News Magazines, which has published Skymag since November 2006.

It is understood that News International is continuing to look for a buyer for real-life women's weekly Love It!.

The decision to close News Magazines was one of the key outcomes of a review of owner News International by James Murdoch, chief executive of News Corporation Europe & Asia.

Among other decisions, Murdoch has instituted a merger of the sales teams across NI's red-top titles and its quality newspapers.

Sky had considered contracting out Skymag to another publisher such as John Brown Publishing, which used to produce it.

However, Sky has instead decided to transfer what it termed "most" of the editorial, production and sales staff working on Skymag to Sky.

The staff, who have been informed of the plans, are expected to remain based at their Chelsea offices until next year.

Following a consultation with staff, there are likely to be some departures, with roles such as client management becoming redundant.

Sky's three other customer titles - Sky Movies, published by Future; Sky Sports, published by Haymarket Network; and Sky Kids, published by John Brown - will remain with their respective publishers.

Skymag is distributed to 7,470,165 Sky customers each month, according to latest ABC figures for the first half of 2008.

Christian Cull, director of Customer Communications at Sky, said: "The integration of the title into Sky will ensure continuity and flexibility for this highly successful magazine and creates the best platform both for the magazine and its talented editorial, commercial and publishing teams."

Last week, it emerged that Sky is reducing the frequency of its quartet of monthly customer magazines, including Skymag.

Skymag, Sky Sports, Sky Movies and Sky Kids will all reduce their frequencies from 12 to 10 issues a year, starting from December.

The decision was made by Sky and not the magazines' respective publishers, News Magazines, Haymarket Network, Future and John Brown.