The Skinny

About The Skinny

The Skinny is an independent Scottish culture magazine and website covering music, film, theatre, comedy, art and clubs across Scotland and the North of England, published from Edinburgh and available at theskinny.co.uk. Founded in 2005 as a free Edinburgh and Glasgow listings magazine, it grew over two decades into one of Scotland's most significant independent cultural publications, known for early interviews with major music acts, champions of emerging Scottish bands, and extensive coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In September 2026 its publisher, the community interest company Radge Media, announced it was ceasing operations — only for the title to be rescued weeks later when Scottish arts charity Outer Spaces agreed to acquire shares in the publisher and stabilise the business. It continues to publish today.

Founding as a free listings magazine

The Skinny was founded and launched in 2005 as a free listings magazine for Edinburgh and Glasgow. It was set up initially as a social enterprise — a structure it maintained until July 2007, when it became a private company limited by shares in order to take on new investment. It entered the market as a direct competitor to Scotland's long-established paid-for entertainment and listings title, The List, and the two titles co-existed for years: The List selling a paid-for monthly to a smaller audience while The Skinny built a much larger free distribution network through cafés, bars, libraries, cinemas, restaurants and shops. By the early 2010s its ABC-audited circulation stood at 32,147 copies a month, distributed through some 650 outlets, with a claimed readership of around 160,000.

Music coverage and early champions

From the outset, The Skinny distinguished itself with ambitious music journalism. Its early issues secured interviews with high-profile international acts including Mogwai, Pearl Jam, Wu-Tang Clan, DJ Shadow and Muse, while at the same time championing emerging Scottish bands such as Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad long before they broke through. In December 2007 it ran ON:07, a conference on the future of the music industry at the University of Edinburgh's Reid Hall, whose delegates included former Pink Floyd and Clash manager Peter Jenner, Mercury Prize founder Simon Frith, and strategy executives from Bebo and the MCPS-PRS Alliance. The magazine's music section became one of its signature strengths, combining listings with long interviews and critical reviews.

The Fest partnership

In August 2006 The Skinny formed a partnership with Fest, the established Edinburgh Festival magazine founded in 2002. The first year of the partnership saw the festival publication renamed SkinnyFest, before it reverted to the Fest title in 2007. The partnership made The Skinny a significant player at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and festival coverage would remain central to its identity: August editions were among its most important of the year, and its Fringe reviews were widely read by performers and audiences alike. In September 2007 the magazine began publishing an annual Student Guide, distributed through Scottish universities and art colleges — a fixture that continued for many years.

Expansion across Scotland and the North West

In May 2007 The Skinny began distributing copies in Dundee, presented as the first step toward Scotland-wide distribution. Its core Scottish territory became Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. In April 2013 it launched a North West edition covering Manchester and Liverpool, with an ambitious monthly print run of 34,000 copies and a dedicated editorial team based in Manchester; the edition was expanded to include Leeds in September 2016. The northern edition lasted four years before being discontinued in 2017, with the company citing challenging financial conditions and senior staff departures that made recruitment and training unmanageable for its limited resources.

Digital growth and the 2020 crisis

The Skinny launched its website in April 2008, moving listings online and adding venue guides around Scotland, and theskinny.co.uk grew into a substantial digital publication in its own right. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the magazine suspended publication and furloughed most of its staff between April and September. It returned thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over £16,000 in donations in under a month — an early demonstration of the affection in which it was held by Scotland's cultural community. In 2021 it launched new city guides to its home cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, reissued in 2022 alongside a Christmas and Hogmanay guide; in 2022 it also launched the fortnightly film podcast The Cineskinny, and in December celebrated its 200th print issue with a party at Summerhall in Edinburgh that doubled as a fundraiser for Tiny Changes, the charity founded by the family of the late Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison.

September 2026: the closure announcement

On 10 September 2026 The Skinny announced that it would be ceasing operations. Its publisher, Radge Media — the community interest company that also published Fest and the food magazine Gnaw — told contributors it would be going into liquidation, and the September issue was declared the last after 21 years of publication. The statement on the magazine's website said the team was "devastated that our work has come to such a sudden end," explaining that the title had "not been immune to the economic difficulties in the Scottish arts" and that funding pressures across the sector, rising costs and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis had created "an increasingly challenging situation." The news was greeted with dismay across Scottish culture: The Skinny had been a fixture of the Edinburgh Fringe for two decades and a launchpad for generations of Scottish music writers, critics and editors.

Rescue by Outer Spaces

The closure proved short-lived. In October 2026 — roughly a month after the announcement — the magazine revealed that its September issue would not, after all, be its last. An agreement was struck between Radge Media CIC and Outer Spaces, the Scottish arts charity that supports a network of more than 1,200 artists with rent-free temporary studios, commissions, residencies and professional development programmes. Under the agreement Outer Spaces would acquire shares in Radge Media in order to stabilise the publisher, while Radge Media CIC would retain full editorial control over its publications — a condition that secured the magazine's editorial independence. Editor-in-chief Rosamund West said the outpouring of support from contributors and collaborators had reaffirmed the importance of a space for local, independent cultural journalism. Outer Spaces director Shân Edwards said the charity recognised the importance of strong, consistent and critical journalism as part of the arts ecosystem it operates within, and was pleased to intervene with a solution allowing continued operations for The Skinny as well as Radge Media's other titles.

A small team with a large footprint

Throughout its life The Skinny was produced by a small team working with limited resources — a fact its own closure statement acknowledged frankly. Its early editions were produced by volunteers, and even at its height the magazine relied on a compact core staff supplemented by freelancers and contributors. Yet its footprint was large: a monthly print magazine distributed across Scotland, a busy website, festival editions, student guides, city guides, a film podcast and a significant social media presence. Its listings network of cafés, bars and venues gave it a physical presence in Scottish cultural life that few digital-only titles could match.

Legacy in Scottish culture

For more than twenty years The Skinny documented Scotland's music, film, theatre, comedy and visual arts with an independent voice and a commitment to new and overlooked work. It gave early coverage to bands that became national institutions, ran one of the most-read Fringe review operations in the country, and provided a training ground for Scottish cultural journalists. Its near-death and rescue in the autumn of 2026 underlined both the fragility of independent cultural media and the depth of feeling it inspires. With the Outer Spaces partnership in place, The Skinny continues to publish from Edinburgh — still free, still independent, and still covering the culture of Scotland and beyond. Its website is theskinny.co.uk.