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BBC Worldwide is closing its monthly BBC Vegetarian Good Food

magazine.

The February issue, which goes on sale on 27 January, will be the

last.

The publishing director Seamus Geoghegan blamed the closure on the

proliferation of information on meat-free cuisine.

He said: ’Recipes and other information about vegetarian food are now

widely available from other sources. It is common for people to eat

meat-free meals at least some of the time but not to consider themselves

vegetarians.’

The title was launched in 1992 - at the height of the vogue for

vegetarianism - as a quarterly spin-off to BBC Good Food. Its ABC peaked

at 83,639 in 1993 and has since been in decline. Its most recent ABC

figure for the first half of last year was 65,181.

BBC Worldwide is trying to find alternative positions for the eight

editorial staff but the ad sales staff, who cross-sold the title with

BBC Good Food, are unaffected by the closure. A departmental reshuffle

before Christmas cut the dedicated sales positions on the title.

Group ad director Justine Southall said: ’We had a good base of small

solus advertisers but bigger fmcg brands now have so many opportunities

to talk to vegetarians. Our audience was too discrete.’