The womens magazine market has been hit by the closure of two more titles, Dennis Publishings PS and John Brown Publishings glossy magazine, Bare.


"Its a great shame as we believe we have shown a way forward for womens magazines," said John Brown, chairman of John Brown Publishing.


"Ultimately, it did not make sense financially for the company to continue to develop Bare," he added.


PS was printed by Cooper Clegg, which was also hit last week by the loss of Hachette/Emaps Sky.


The ABC circulation figure for PS was recorded as 100,446, but neither Bare nor PS would comment on the size of print run.


Repro for PS was handled by Colour Systems, while printing for Bare was carried out by St Ives and repro by Zebra in London.


The closure of fashion and fitness title Bare comes less than a year after its launch, and after the publisher had tried unsuccessfully to secure a buyer for the ailing title.


A downturn in sales and advertising spend is also being blamed for the closures as the competitive market in the magazine sector begins to bite.


Honor Riley, publisher at John Brown, blamed the "vast sums spent on enticing the reader by the addition of expensive cover mounts", as glossies tried to outsell each other.


Womens shopping title PS was suspended two weeks ago after "failing to reach sales targets".


Dennis Publishing tried to find a buyer for the title, but to no avail.


Recent weeks have seen the closure of Sky, Later, Nova and Mondo.


Story by Andy Scott