Consumer ABCs: Men’s Lifestyle

Compared with other parts of the magazine market, men’s lifestyle is showing some buoyancy, with the majority of titles remaining fairly stable between July and December.

Esquire had a good half-year and was the only title that managed to increase its circulation both over the period (+0.6%) and the year (+11%). It now has a combined print and digital presence of more than 65,000.

Men’s Health was also in fairly good shape, with a 1.1% period-on-period increase securing its position as the second-most popular title with a circulation of 182,000. However, in line with most of the magazine market, the title was down -6.5% year-on-year.

The same can’t be said for other fitness mags, however, with Healthy for Men (-27.4% YoY) and Men’s Fitness (-16.8% YoY) looking a little body conscious at bottom of the market with much smaller – and dwindling – circulations.

Free title Shortlist remains the best-performing men’s lifestyle mag by far with a circulation of almost 505,000. It was down by just -0.22% PoP and -0.16% YoY.

Similarly, despite both period (-1.3%) and yearly (-3.7%) declines, GQ kept its place as the third-most popular title with a circulation of a little over 115,500.

Meanwhile, tech mag Wired – which is obviously only read by men – recorded the biggest period-on-period circulation decline at -2%; however, it still manages a solid print and digital presence of more than 53,000.

And whatever stuff Stuff is doing doesn’t seem to be working, with the Haymarket title down -10.3% over the year.