Daily Star turns away ads from Nuts and Zoo titles

The Daily Star is understood to be turning away advertising by men’s weekly magazine titles such as EMAP’s Zoo and IPC Media’s Nuts because they are seen as direct competition.

Agency Beattie McGuiness Bungay recently resigned its &£3m Zoo account after just two months, citing client conflict with Richard Desmond’s publishing company Northern & Shell as the reason behind the decision.

And though Daily Star executives refuse to confirm or deny the move, industry sources say they will not be surprised to see Express Newspapers “getting tough” with the weekly male titles.

One source says: “You can see how the Daily Star competes for the same audience as those magazines. It is uniquely placed among newspapers to tap into that twenty-something male who looks mainly for gossip-based news.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they had ABC figures telling them their circulation drops on the days when Nuts and Zoo are published. Whether or not it makes sense for the Daily Star to turn away any advertising income in the current climate is another issue and a question for them.”

According to December’s Audit Bureau of Circulation’s figures the Daily Star suffered a 1.98 per cent year on year drop in readership to 779,556.

By contrast, according to the most recent magazine ABC figures released in August last year, Zoo increased its sales by 8.8 per cent year on year to 260,000 copies a week, 45,000 copies behind rival Nuts.