FutureGov ceases publication

FutureGov has ceased all its operations.On a LinkedIn post, Joshua Chambers editor of FutureGov.Asia said despite closing two of the company’s events arms last year, the debt accumulated by parent company Alphabet Media, run by James Smith was too great. Meanwhile the profitable digital arm was paying this off too slowly.This comes despite the company saying in January that Alphabet Media would be merging its events and publishing teams. The merger came after a fairly public firing of two of the company’s three senior managers, Alphabet Media, publishers of FutureGov magazine and producer of the FutureGov series of events said it has undergone a restructure."Publishing is a difficult industry, but we proved at FutureGov that it can be profitable and good quality. Revenues have been strong over the past year, but legacy debts from previous businesses seemed to bring us down," Chambers said in the note.(Read also: Management bust-up at Alphabet Media)Marketing has reached out to Alphabet Media for a statement.Chambers, in his most recent blog post, added that editorially, FutureGov’s readership has more than doubled over the past year to 70,000 government officials a month. Chambers added that revenues had been strong over the past year, “but legacy debts from previous businesses” let the team down.“I’ve written this post because I wanted to explain what has happened in our own words. It has been a tremendous experience speaking to so many people in government across the region, and also working with commercial partners who wish to support public sector innovation,” Chambers added.