The closure of the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport late on Friday night can hardly have been a surprise to most in the media community.

Following a rushed statement on Friday morning, proclaiming the publisher of both titles Sport Media Group (SMG), had removed itself from AIM (Alternative Investment Market) "pending clarification of its financial position", shares in the group were suspended due to a lack of assurance from the Royal Bank of Scotland that it was to offer future financial support to the titles.

In what many must have observed as a bizarre twist Sport Media blamed the weather for its financial position.

The group, in a statement, said: "The company has experienced an insufficient recovery in trading since the adverse weather in December 2010, with consequential pressure on the company's working capital position."

MEC Opinion: No surprise here, especially when their classified advertisers changed their strategy to other channels. The conventional advertisers have mainly avoided using these titles completely, making it difficult to generate revenue at all. What was a tongue-in-cheek read, became filled with content such as sex and sport, which understandably kept them going for many years, but with the .com generation and a change in the male market, particularly on how they can access this particular content for free, it was inevitable that they were going to close.