Maxim's ascendancy knocked online-only title Monkey off the top of the tree, a position the latter had successfully defended since its official launch in November. The Dennis title also fended off competition from FHM, which had scored highest of the three titles in October.
Alex Burmaster, Nielsen//NetRatings' European internet analyst, said: "The last quarter has seen the big three online men's lifestyle magazines -- Maxim, FHM and Monkey -- vying for top spot. On its official launch in November 2006, Monkey climbed straight to the top of the tree but the last two months have seen a slight, if steady, drop in popularity to fall behind Maxim and FHM."
Despite falling circulations of print editions, many of their virtual counterparts grew their readerships. Dennis Publishing demonstrated the most impressive growth in online audience, accounting for the three fastest-growing men's titles online between October 2006 and January 2007 -- Bizarre grew its audience by 255%, Maxim by 124% and Monkey by 99%.
IPC's Loaded and Emap's Zoo came next, scoring growth of 86% and 66% respectively. In tenth position, NatMag Rodale's Men's Health was the only magazine in the top ten to suffer a fall in audience, losing 2%.
"The impressive growth in online numbers is in stark contrast to the recently published print figures that showed circulation falls for most of the leading players," said Burmaster. "Taken together with Dennis's launch of the digital-only Monkey, the trends show what an important battleground the online space has already become to traditional publishers."
Other findings published in the report showed that, online, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo attracted the greatest proportion of male readers, scoring a male audience share of 88%, 83% and 81% respectively.
However, more than half (55%) of the online audience for Conde Nast's so-called men's title GQ was female.
"It seems that the phrase 'men's magazines' could be a slight misnomer, as women accounted for an average of 29% of the audience across the top 10," said Burmaster. "Females accounted for well over a third of the audience to Men's Health and more than half of the audience for GQ."
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