Esquire to go bi-monthly with £6 cover price as publisher Hearst looks to ‘enhance’ men’s mag’s ‘luxury positioning’

Men’s lifestyle magazine Esquire will move from a monthly to publishing six issues a year under new plans from owner Hearst UK, with each new issue costing £6 – a cover price hike of 38 per cent.

The change to a bi-monthly publishing frequency will come into effect from February 2019, when the first issue of the new print edition will go on sale.

Esquire UK currently costs £4.35 and has a total circulation of just under 60,500 of which roughly half (28,500) are given out free, according to ABC figures for the six months to the end of June this year.

Hearst said it will invest in Esquire to “enhance” the magazine’s “luxury positioning” with a bigger size format, better quality paper, more pages and new sections and contributors.

Esquire editor-in-chief Alex Bilmes said the changes would “ensure we will be the men’s magazine brand of decades to come”.

Alongside print changes, the Esquire website will also be updated and a new series of bespoke events, called Esquire Evenings, will launch across London.

Esquire already runs two other events: Esquire Townhouse, a “four-day luxury brand experience” and Esquire Self-Made, a “one-day entrepreneur-focused luxury summit” which launched this year.

A spokesperson said Hearst will double Esquire’s marketing spend “to ensure greater impact” where it is sold and in a bid to reach a “high-net-worth audience” at events and exhibitions.

Esquire will also increase its product collaborations with luxury brands, they said.

Esquire editor-in-chief Alex Bilmes said: “In a time of transformational change for media, it is right for Esquire itself to change to ensure we will be the men’s magazine brand of decades to come.

“The new look Esquire is a tightly focused, proudly niche, highly specialised product, made to the most exacting standards, for an audience of committed readers and consumers who demand only the best.

“Esquire does not seek to be all things to all men. Instead it seeks to mean a great deal to a specific, extremely influential group of men, and women – worldly, sophisticated, literate, affluent, urbane – with a genuine interest in living well.”

Alun Williams, managing director of men’s lifestyle at Hearst UK, said: “These innovations are driven by our deep audience insight and designed to drive Esquire even further into the luxury market.

“The new look magazine celebrates the unique experience of luxury in print, the Esquire website will provide consumers with engaging content in a format to suit their everyday lives and the launch of Esquire Evenings is yet another example of bringing our brand to life.”