Arena mother ship sinks, local edition safe

Singapore - The future of MediaCorp's men's magazine Arena Singapore appears safe, following the closure of the flagship UK title. 

Zita Ong, managing director of MediaCorp publishing, told Marketing that Arena Singapore will not close.

"The news of Arena [in the UK] just came to us yesterday and we're still looking at contractual agreements -- it [closure] will not affect international editions. And we're very much committed to the men's market here," Ong said.

Ong said 80% of the content in Arena Singapore is locally produced and does not come from the UK title.

Arena Singapore launched in October 2006 with much fanfare when MediaCorp Publishing hosted key Arena UK staffers who were in town to meet the local team for what was the first English-language edition of the magazine outside of the UK.

Arena Singapore claimed to debut with an initial circulation of 20,000, the title is not audited according to Singapore Audit Bureau of Circulations' website. 

Arena magazine in the UK has been published continuously for 22 years and changed hands a number of times, ending up with Bauer Media as its owner which eventually signed the pioneering men's title's death warrant yesterday London time.

While the magazine made concerted efforts to bridge the "lad", "metrosexual" and "ubersexual" phases of fashionable British blokes, media commentators said that constant evolution eventually left it with no audience.

Arena is also published in Thailand, Korea, Denmark and Turkey.