THE FAREHAM branch of troubled entertainment retailer Music Zone is to close with the loss of 20 jobs.

Administrators announced 31 of 104 branches in the chain are to close with 325 jobs being axed.They examined trading at the Westbury Mall store and decided it was no longer viable.

Staff were paid up until Monday January 15 and will get any outstanding holiday pay they are owed. They could also be entitled to more cash from the Redundancy Payments Office.

Remaining The remaining parts of the music and film chain, which collapsed into administration two weeks ago, is still trying to be sold off by administrator Deloitte as a going concern. It said a number of parties have expressed an interest.

The UK's third largest music and film retailer by number of stores, Music Zone collapsed into administration after creditors called in debts.

Music Zone was widely seen as a victim of cut-throat competition on the high street, with supermarkets such as Tesco offering discounted CDs, DVDs and books.Fierce discounting from online rivals has also hit sales at the chain, along with bigger competitors such as HMV, which issued a profits warning before Christmas.

Asssessing Bill Dawson, a partner at Deloitte, said: "During the first week of trading the administrators spent a considerable amount of time assessing the viability of the business and the difficult decision was taken to close a number of stores.

"However, we have commenced a marketing strategy to seek a buyer of the business as a going concern and continue to work hard to achieve a positive result for Music Zone."

Music Zone continues to operate from 72 stores across the UK, employing 775 staff.