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The new magazines, the first weekly film titles in the UK, would sit alongside both publishers' monthly offerings.

Emap produces the market leading film monthly, Empire magazine, which saw a 7.5% rise in circulaton to 195,410 this year. IPC's music and film title, Uncut, also surged ahead with a 6.7% rise to 112,816.

Future Publishing's Total Film is the third major player in the market, with a circulation figure of 90,749.

Ian Tournes, the press director at Starcom MediaVest, said there was room in the cinema market for weeklies.

"Empire does a good job but all the big film distributors are always looking for places they can place low-wastage ads for a cinema-going audience," he claimed. Film distributors spend around £150m a year on advertising.

At the same time, UK cinema attendance is increasing: in 2003, 167m people vistied the cinema, attracted by blockbusters such as the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy and the adaptations of the 'Harry Potter' books.

The momentum continued during 2004. And 2005 is also predicted to a be a bumper year, wth the launch of blockbusters such as the lastest instalment in the 'Star Wars' series, 'Ocean's Twelve' and 'Alexander'.

An Emap spokeswoman said: "We are always looking at new launches, but our priority next year s the successful aunch of Grazia."

IPC declined to comment as ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 went to press.

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