Consumer ABCs: Men’s Lifestyle

Freebie Shortlist – which was killed off late last year – ended up leading the market in the men’s lifestyle category as the year closed, reaching a circulation of nearly 503,300 readers, up 0.1% both period-on-period and year-on-year.

In November its publisher Shortlist Media announced a rebrand to The Stylist Group – leading on the female media brand it also publishes – while ditching print operations for Shortlist and turning its website into a ‘product recommender’ – meaning this is a fond farewell for the popular yet struggling mag.

Elsewhere in H2 2018, the only other title reporting positive growth figures was Square Mile, up 1.2% PoP and 1.1% YoY to 59,400 readers.

That said, most declines were slight with the exception of Men’s Health, which recorded a -16.4% decline YoY but a 0.5% increase PoP, reaching a circulation of 146,800.

Meanwhile, Conde Nast’s GQ was down -4.3% YoY to just over 110,000, while Hearst’s Esquire was down -5.9% to 59,000.

Finally, newbie The Jackal reported a 100,000 circulation figure, the fourth highest circulation figure after GQ.