Titles such as Dennis Publishing's Maxim and Bauer's FHM, with a tradition of featuring glamour models, have suffered at the hands of consumers searching for higher quality content-led magazines. Maxim's circulation slumped 59.6% year-on-year to 43,542 - 44.5% down on the second half of 2007 - while IPC's Loaded was also down, 20.8% to 95,371 year on year.
Simon Clark, publishing director of Maxim, accepted that consumer demands were shifting. He attributed the title's decline to changes in recent months, reducing the glamour content and becoming more content-driven.
'We are investing heavily in the physical product and we want people to know it's a quality offering, but it is a transitional period for us,' said Clark. 'The readers we lost by changing the brand were readers we were losing anyway. It was a brave decision to rebrand, but, in the long term, it was correct.'
Clare Rush, head of press at Mediaedge:cia, said that the men's sector was being forced to change its offering quickly.
'There has been a huge decline in the "bums and boobs" market because the men's magazine sector is moving more towards quality and strong content,' she said.
Elsewhere, Bauer's FHM dropped 10% year on year to 280,392 while its Zoo title fell 13.6% to 161, 331 and IPC's Nuts slipped 9.8%.
Bauer's Arena increased its circulation by 22.4% compared with the second half of 2007 to 30,896, but much of that growth can be attributed to the introduction of more than 5000 monitored free-distribution copies during the year.
However, it was not all bad news for the men's market, with Esquire, GQ, BBC Focus, Men's Fitness and Men's Health all managing to increase or maintain circulation year on year.
Jamie Jouning, associate publisher for GQ, said strong investment in quality editorial would see brands through tough times. 'We will continue our strategy of providing strong supplements and well-written editorial,' he added.
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