Bauer Consumer Media, the magazine publishing group, has wielded the axe on two of its women's magazines just two months after acquiring Emap's consumer magazine and radio businesses for £1.14billion.

The magazines First and New Woman are set to be suspended and Bauer said that it plans to enter “a month-long consultation period with editorial staff”. The magazines are not expected to survive.

The last edition of First, a weekly, will go on sale on Tuesday. NW, a monthly magazine, will put its April edition on sale at the end of this month and then be closed.

The move by Bauer marks a definite shift by the new owner away from Emap's strategy. Emap reportedly invested £12million in the launch of First a year ago and a significant sum into the rebranding of New Woman as NW, two years ago.

“Today Bauer Consumer Media (formerly Emap Consumer Media) has announced the suspension of NW (New Woman) and First, whilst we enter a month-long period of consultation with editorial staff,” Marcus Rich, the group managing director of Bauer Advertising and Bauer London lifestyle magazines, said. “There will be no further comment until this consultation process has concluded.”

Bauer made no statement about redundancies. While no commerical roles at Bauer will be affected, but 30journalists on First and 19 on NW are likely to lose their jobs.

First magazine launched in May 2006, with Emap dubbing it a “groundbreaking new woman's weekly”. Emap's ambitions were for First, which was aimed at women in their thirties, to reach between 150,000 and 200,000 copy sales weekly after one year on the newsstand. New Woman, a monthly lifestyle and fashion magazine, was rebranded NW.

On February 14, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) is set to release its magazine figures, which are announced twice yearly. Neither title is expected to have performed well. Sources said that men's magazines could also come under pressure in the next ABC figures, as a large proportion of men have deserted magazines in favour of the internet in recent times.

Bauer owns the men's weekly Zoo, which has faced stiff competition from IPC's Nuts magazine, and the men's monthly FHM.

Bauer is expected to make many more changes to its consumer magazines division in the next year, which could also involve the sell-off of some magazines. It may decide that the specialist magazines, which were part of Emap's consumer magazines portfolio, are not a strategic fit. These could attract interest from private equity groups such as Exponent, which also tried to acquire the assets when they were auctioned off last year.

Consumer magazines have come under increasing pressure in the past few years as audiences, particularly in the younger and male markets, have migrated online. Magazine groups have also faced a challenging advertising market.

A family affair

Four generations of the Bauer family have expanded the publisher into an empire comprising 166 magazines in 14 countries. It entered the British market with the women's title Bella in 1987 and had further success in 1990 with Take a Break, which has a similar format of competitions and real-life stories and sells more than a million copies a week.

The German group traces its origins to 1875, when Hamburg resident Johann Bauer went into business as a printer, setting up shop at his home with a borrowed press. It is now run by Heinz Bauer and his four daughters work for the family business.

The company's ownership of Emap's magazine and radio businesses is likely to prove challenging. Many titles, particularly men's magazines, have suffered as readers moved online. Bauer will have to improve the internet offering at the same time as boosting circulation.

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