Sanoma Media, Finland's media business giant, have announced that they will shut down the Ukrainian versions of Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Men's Health and National Geographic monthly magazines, as well as Domashniy Ochag, another publication that the company markets in Ukraine and Russia.
It has sold the right to publish the local version of Cosmopolitan magazine to Hearst
Shkulev, a Russian publishing house that operates in Ukraine and runs Elle and
Maxim entertainment publications. No one expressed interest in other Sanoma
brands.
“As a result of the strategic review announced on Oct. 31,
Sanoma has made the decision to discontinue business operations in Ukraine in
agreement with all other shareholders and license partners,” reads the company’s
Nov.
17 official statement. “The January 2015 issues will be the last to be
published. Online media will continue until 31 December 2014.”
Critically low revenues on Ukraine’s media market as well as
Sanoma’s decision to focus on educational projects and business in Northern Europe, according
to Novoe Vremya weekly, are key reasons why many Ukrainian readers will have to go back to reading the Russian versions of Esquire, Men’s Health and National Geographic.
There are many signs that something is going wrong with the parent
company. Helsinki-traded Sanoma lost more than 35 percent of its value during the
last 12 months, while the first nine months’ operating
profit was 12.6 percent down in 2014, standing at 124.4 million euros.
An employer of up to 8,000 people globally, Sanoma had a staff of some 140
people in Kyiv and ran as many as eight publications here, although two of them –
Sensa and Casa Viva – have been closed earlier this year.
Cartoon by Oksana Vaskiv-Kukul’s Mediacomics.
“We are leaving the market stuffed with expensive
advertising, profitable, interesting, with a pool of the best authors, with a stock
of the finest stories,” Kateryna Babkina, contributing editor at Esquire
Ukraine, wrote on her Facebook page on Nov. 16. “The entire pool of
publications that (lack) competition for their quality and content are also
leaving because investors are afraid of this country and don’t understand it,
don’t believe in it, secure their money, and also because to work safely and
transparently is still almost impossible here, and we know this.”
The first issue of Ukraine-published Esquire came out in
2012, while the language issue of the publication was among the most discussed
ones. The Ukrainian version of a magazine was running all the stories in Russian. “Ukrainian Esquire should have been a Ukraine-language publication,”
comments Cristian Lupsa, former editor of Esquire Romania, who now heads Decat o
Revista, another magazine on lifestyle & culture. “There’s even
nothing to argue about.”
However, Sanoma’s National Geographic was published in Ukrainian since
its launch in 2013, which is the only case of an international media brand in Ukraine.
Dmytro Hubenko, magazine’s deputy editor, promised subscribers reimbursement for the issues they won’t get. “The current economic situation
does not allow Sanoma publishing house to continue publishing the
magazine,” he wrote. “If there are investors in Ukraine willing to
finance the issuance of the magazine, they should apply to the National
Geographic Society USA. We are sure that National Geographic Ukraine will revive as soon as the
economic climate in the country will allow.”
With more than 40,000 followers on its official Facebook account, National
Geographic was quite popular among the local readers. After learning the news, some of them started posting their selfies with a copy of the magazine. Others
created an open social media group to somehow rescue the magazine, with 1,500
enrolling in a few hours.
“You’ve been a trademark, making beautiful and desired
product,” commented Oleksiy Shevchenko, one of the readers. “It’s a
pity that the market once again cut a nice perspective sprout which does not
promise quick harvest. I believe you will be back.”
Kyiv Post staff writer
Oksana Lyachynska can be reached at [email protected].
