Ocean Media Group has closed down its monthly performance-oriented custom motorcycle magazine Streetfighters. The June issue, which has just appeared, will be the last stand-alone version of the title. However, the name will continue on a 32-page section within Ocean’s other custom bike title Back Street Heroes from July onwards.
Perhaps ironically, Streetfighters started life as a spin-off from Back Street Heroes, launched in the early 1990s when that magazine was still owned by its founding publishers Steve Myatt and Alistair McFarlane. After Manchester-based Myatt-McFarlane folded, both titles ended up moving to London to join the Trinity Mirror national newspaper and magazine stable. Another more mainstream Myatt-McFarlane title, Motorcycle International, was merged with Motorcycle Sport & Leisure — now owned by Mortons Media — at about the same time.
Ocean was established in 2006 by David Moran and Irish investment firm Ion Equity to take over the exhibitions and magazine businesses of Trinity Mirror. The group was subsequently sold in 2007 to a management-buy-in team. Moran and Ion Equity reacquired the operation from its holding company Mercury Equity in January 2012.