ABC Consumer July-Dec 2009: Men’s Lifestyle

It was a tale of two business models in the men’s lifestyle sector, with free titles taking up the top two positions once again.

Shortlist remains way out in front with a circulation of more than 513,000 copies following a small 1.4% year on year increase.

Sport also managed to retain second place with a circulation of more than 306,000 copies, despite suffering a 3.4% year on year drop.

Meanwhile, Men’s Health topped the paid-for titles with over 250,500 copies after a slight 0.2% year on year rise.

However, many of the other paid-for men’s magazines suffered fairly heavy circulation declines during the six-month period.

Zoo saw its circulation fall by almost 30% year on year to 102,000 copies, while Nuts shed 24.4% to below 177,000 copies.

IPC’s lads mag Loaded also saw its circulation plummet year on year, down by more than 20% to around 71,000 copies.

Bauer’s FHM, meanwhile, suffered a 15.2% year on year drop to around 231,000 copies.

Condé Nast’s GQ was also down by 7.7% year on year to 120,000 copies, while NatMag’s Esquire posted a 1.5% dip to 59,000 copies.

However, some titles in our analysis performed better over the six month period.

Men’s Fitness, BBC Focus and Haymarket’s Stuff all posted year on year increases of 1.3%, 2.1% and 0.7% respectively.

Meanwhile, Condé Nast’s Wired, which launched in April 2009 and is reporting for the first time, has a total circulation of more than 48,000 copies.