Future unveils second new magazine of the year
Future is set to launch its second new title this year – a monthly magazine for triathletes called Triathlon Plus – following the launch of The Knitter last month.
The magazine, which will hit the shelves on April 7 with a cover price of £3.99 and pagination of 148, will be produced in Bath and edited by former Mountain Biking UK and Cycling Plus editor Mat Brett.
Future trialled the title in January and has decided to push ahead with the launch to capture the rapidly growing triathlon market, with an inital print run of 50,000 copies.
The publisher’s chief operating officer Simon Wear said the publication will bring something “new and different” to the market.
Wear said: “We believe there is now a real appetite among both consumers and the industry for a magazine that provides high-end design and editorial content, and our track record in cycling gives us the ideal credentials to do this.
“The specialist skills embedded in the structure of Future lend themselves perfectly to creating a great magazine packed full of tutorials, reviews and features,” he added.
Future’s current portfolio includes Cycling Plus, Procycling, What Mountain Bike, Mountain Biking UK as well as bikeradar.com and cyclingnews.com, however, it doesn’t publish any running titles at present.
Triathlon was added to the Olympic programme in 2000 and has since become increasingly popular, with participants doubling in the UK over the last nine years.
The London Triathlon is the biggest in the world with around 13,000 participants and 650 registered races in the UK last year alone.
In the latest ABC release, sporting magazines did particularly well in the men’s monthly sector – with free title Sport recording a period on period rise of almost 1.5%, taking it to more than 317,000 copies – the second highest circulation in the sector.
Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness also enjoyed circulation boosts for the period – Men’s Health was up 4% year on year and 2% period on period to 250,000 copies, while Dennis’ Men’s Fitness was up by around 2.5% period on period to 67,000 copies.
Men’s Health has now overtaken Nuts as the second-placed paid for men’s lifestyle title, behind FHM (see ABC Results Jul-Dec 2008:Shortlist shows staying power in men’s lifestyle sector).