Emap Set To Shake-Up Market With New Men’s Magazine
Emap looks set to shake-up the men’s magazine market with the launch of the first weekly title targeting males interested in sport, news, entertainment, gossip and glamorous women.
Reports suggest that the £8 million launch, codenamed Operation Tyson, could take place within the next few months and will build on the success of Emap’s existing weekly women’s titles Heat and Closer.
The magazine will tap into the 3.1 million males who regularly read men’s titles by targeting the lucrative 16 to 34 year-old age group. Insiders working on the launch told the Times that Operation Tyson will be “funny and sexy”.
It is understood that the price of the magazine will be close to the £1.45 that Emap currently charges for its celebrity focussed Heat, which saw circulation increase by 18.1% year on year in the latest ABC results for the six months to June 2003.
Project Tyson could be the biggest launch in the men’s lifestyle magazine market since the unveiling of IPC’s Loaded in 1994 and the arrival of Emap’s FHM on the scene a year later.
The sector has experienced something of a rocky ride over the last few years as it came down to earth with a bang following its rapid rise to notoriety in the late nineties. FHM still sells over 600,000 copies a month, but the latest ABC results revealed declines for a number of key titles including Loaded and Maxim.
In contrast, the celebrity magazine market appears to be thriving as readers turn away from older, more traditional women’s titles in search of the latest gossip on the lives of the rich and famous (see ABC Jan-Jun 2003: Celebrity Magazines Continue To Thrive).
Emap’s Closer put in a strong performance in the six months to June and entered the highly competitive women’s weekly market with circulation of 334,542 less than a year after its launch. Chic Magazine’s weekly New! is also riding high on the celebrity wave and recorded an initial circulation of just under 340,000.
The increasing popularity of Heat also recently prompted Emap to launch the celebrity focussed title as a national music radio station on Freeview at the end of last month (see Emap Hots Up With Launch Of Heat Radio On Freeview).
Emap: 01733 568 900 www.emap.co.uk
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