Athletics Weekly - Emap Years (1987 To 1999)

Emap Years (1987 To 1999)

The title was bought in 1987 by Emap and moved from Kent to Peterborough, where the management sought to repeat the publishing success of its Smash Hits pop title and re-launched AW as an A4 title aimed at teenagers.

Emap made some business decisions that decreased the quality of the product and damaged the magazine's reputation. First, the previous editorial staff was not retained by Emap thus losing the experience and inside connections these employees had fostered through the years. On top of this the inexperienced editorial team had to deal with a publication date brought forward to Wednesdays, requiring a speedy and expensive turnaround of each weekend's results. The result of these decisions was that lucrative subscriptions were lost and Athletics Weekly sales nosedived. By late 1989, one-third of sales had been lost and Keith Nelson, Emap's choice as editor, was moved on.

Aware of its loyal following's disgruntlement with the re-launch of Athletics Weekly, in 1989 Eddie Kulukundis funded the launch of a rival title, Athletics Today, jointly edited by Randall Northam and Mel Watman: for the first time in its existence, Athletics Weekly now faced competition.

Despite the sport's continued successes through the 1990s and the ultimate demise of its rival in 1993, Athletics Weekly struggled in vain to regain its reputation for comprehensiveness and accuracy.