Another magazine falls prey to the publishing downturn: Dennis Publishing‘s Computer Buyer has been closed and will have its remaining assets merged with sister title Computer Shopper. Felix Dennis’s company, which claims the title has generated more than £5 million of profit in its lifetime, gave the obvious answer to why the mag had to go (via PG): “With a newsstand sale of fewer than 2,000 copies a month it has become impossible to keep publishing the title.” In its last ABC audit in 2007, Computer Buyer had an average circulation of 9,477 with 3,481 coming from newsstand sales—but that low figure has deteriorated even further since then, sinking to perhaps its lowest level since its launch 18 years ago, not helped by the launch of Ziff Davis’s rival title PC Direct 18 months ago. The merger won’t add any more media redundancies to the growing list however: since 2007 the mag has been staffed by freelancers.

The downturn is forcing more and more publishers to look at their portfolios and think: “why do we own this title?” In the case of Computer Buyer, where Dennis already owned a more successful magazine exactly in the same sector, it was an obvious case for consolidating and cost-saving.