ABCs: Fitness titles in good health; lads’ mags droop

ABCs: Circulations for the traditional “lads’ mags” in their print editions have dropped with leading titles recording huge falls but specialist fitness titles have stayed buoyant, according to latest magazine ABC data.

Mens' Magazines

IPC’s monthly Loaded dropped to 72,679, with a 19.3% dip for June to December period-on-period and 23 % year-on-year.

However, the title is still some distance away from the average net circulation last posted by Maxim, now defunct in its print edition. The Dennis Publishing title posted a figure of 45,951 before it was killed off.

Bauer Media’s lads’ monthly FHM posted a figure of 235,027, down 13.8% period-on-period and 16.2% year-on-year

The weekly men’s titles Nuts, from IPC, and Zoo, from Bauer Media, posted drops of 24.6% and 31.2% respectively year-on-year. The former now has a circulation of 188,532 and the latter 111,012.

While the printed titles are suffering, the publishers of the lads’ mags argue that their branded websites are delivering strong traffic. IPC is the first publisher to unveil detailed monthly ABCe data for its titles .

The figures show www.nuts.co.uk delivered an average on 1,407,574 monthly unique users while www.loaded.co.uk delivered an average of 316,334 monthly unique users for the period January to June. The publisher relaunched its Nuts website in autumn last year.

However, some still have faith in the lads’ mag magazine product as Indepepdnet company Kane recently buying Front from Sport Media Group for £87,500. The title has not been registered for an ABC figure.

Overall the men’s lifestyle sector dropped 4.7% year-on-year. Specialist sectors are holding up better and NatMag Rodale’s Men’s Health registered a 2.1% year-on-year increase to 250,247 while Dennis title Men’s Fitness rose 3.6% year-on-year to 67,987.

National Magazine’s Esquire fell 12.2% period-on-period and 9.3% year-on-year to 52,705 while Condé Nast’s GQ dropped 7.7% period-on-period and year-on-year to 120.019.

Shortlist, the free weekly from Mike Soutar’s company, saw its distribution up 6.1% year-on-year to 510,720. The company is now readying a female free title called Stylist.

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