±±¾©Èü³µpk10

The pressure from investors comes after the company has seen its value almost halve since last summer, when it was worth £120m.

The magazine is believed to have a week to go to press on the December issue, after which it will cease publishing. Ministry of Sound is understood to be keen to continue in publishing, possibly through a joint venture. However, it is thought unlikely to publish another dance music title.

The company is understood to want to make as few redundancies as possible and will enter into a two-week consultation period with its staff of up to 15 journalists and sales people. It is not known where Ministry of Sound would redeploy staff if they were to be kept on.

Speculation about Ministry's future has been circulating for over a week after it emerged that the company's value had crashed since last summer, following a £24m cash injection from venture capitalist 3i.

Ministry magazine, which sits in the number two spot in the dance music magazine sector behind Emap's Mixmag, has been haemorrhaging readers and in the last set of ABCs its circulation fell 21.7% on the previous period to 65,030, a year-on-year drop of 13.6%.

Mixmag recorded an ABC of 100,336, while IPC Media's Muzik sits in third place in the sector with 35,018, down 18.5% year on year.

Ministry's closure reflects the decline of the UK dance music scene, which has already claimed one victim with the closure of Liverpool superclub Cream.

Ministry is said to have used the bulk of 3i's money in building up its A&R division as it moved into music publishing so it could sign up acts for its compilation CDs and avoid large royalty payments to other labels. It also set up a radio station soon after the investment was announced.

Ministry, which was set up by James Palumbo, son of property tycoon Lord Palumbo, and James Bethell, son of Lord Bethell, in a disused bus depot in a rundown part of Elephant & Castle, has become one of the UK's biggest media brands since its inception in 1991.

Along with other major dance music brands such as Cream, Ministry is struggling as clubbers are swapping the all-night rave culture that mushroomed in the 90s for school reunion parties such as School Disco.

If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .