The men's magazine market continued to rapidly lose sales in the second half of last year with Loaded and FHM the biggest fallers.
Even market leader Men's Health fell victim to the market-wide trend – dropping 1.9 per cent year-on-year to average 245,923 sales a month.
Former market leader FHM is now firmly in second place with average sales of 177,261 a month – down 23.3 per cent year on year. FHM editor Colin Kennedy left the Bauer Media title in January after just over two years in the job.
More up-market men's monthlies fared better: Jeremy Langmead left Esquire in December 2010 to go into the online shopping business but he must have been something right, as sales for it were slightly up year on year.
At GQ sales remained stable at 120,000 a month, also out-performing the market.
The original Lad's mag, Loaded, sold an average of 49,448 copies a month in the second half of last year – a drop of 30.8 per cent year on year and fraction of the 450,000 copies it was shifting during its 1990s heyday.
Editor Martin Daubney left the title in September ahead of its sale the following month from IPC to Vitality Publishing.
Men's weekly Nuts now sells less than half what it did five years ago with 142,212 copies a week (down 19.6 per cent year on year).
However, Nuts remains well ahead of men's weekly rival Zoo, which dropped 32.8 per cent year on year to 68, 610.
Both Zoo and Nuts launched in 2004 with Zoo peaking five years ago with an average circulation of 260,000.
Circulation of free weeklies Shortlist and Sport were stable. Sales in the technology end of the market held up well, with Wired up 3.7 per cent to 50,044 just under two years after its launch in April 2009, BBC Focus also slightly up and Stuff slightly down by 2.9 per cent year on year.
Men's magazines circulation figures for the second half of 2010
(Title; publisher; circulation; percentation change year on year – source ABC)
- Shortlist (free weekly) ; Shortlist Media Ltd ; 521,713 ; 1.7%
- Sport (free weekly) ; UTV Media Ltd ; 306,540 ; 0.0%
- Men's Health ; Natmag Rodale ; 245,923 ; -1.9%
- FHM ; Bauer Consumer Media ; 177,261 ; -23.3%
- Nuts ; IPC Media Ltd ; 142,212 ; -19.6%
- GQ ; Conde Nast Publications Ltd ; 120,087 ; 0.0%
- RWD (free monthly) ; RWD Media Ltd ; 98,033 ; 26.8%
- Stuff ; Haymarket Consumer Media ; 92,959 ; -2.9%
- BBC Focus ; BBC Worldwide ; 72,183 ; 0.6%
- Men's Fitness ; Dennis Publishing Limited ; 68,843 ; 1.2%
- Zoo ; Bauer Consumer Media ; 68,610 ; -32.8%
- Healthy for Men ; River Publishing Ltd ; 59,992 ; 16.8%
- Esquire ; The National Magazine Company Ltd ; 59,382 ; 0.4%
- T3 ; Future Publishing Ltd ; 56,878 ; -3.8%
- Wired ; Conde Nast Publications Ltd ; 50,044 ; 3.7%
- Loaded ; Vitality Publishing Ltd ; 49,448 ; -30.6%
- Front Magazine ; Kane Ltd ; 38,645 ; -7.9%
- Bizarre ; Dennis Publishing Limited ; 24,744 ; -14.6%
- Smart Life International ; Partridge Publications (2000) Ltd ; 15,224 ; -9.0%
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