However, the performance of free weeklies Sport and ShortList buoyed the overall sector, which rose nearly 20% year on year. ShortList, the free weekly, has the highest average circulation across the sector, following its push into cities outside London.
Eric Fuller, managing director of IPC Ignite, said the men's monthly market remains a tough proposition, as it continues to feel the impact of weekly rivals such as Nuts and Zoo.
However, the men's weeklies are also feeling the pinch, with Bauer Media's Zoo down 13.6% year on year and 9.9% period on period, and IPC's Nuts down 9.8% year on year and 7.4% period on period.
Yet Hannah Murphy, press buyer at Vizeum, believes the two weekly titles are "still bringing in the numbers" and that, despite circulation drops, their publishers are unlikely to desert salacious content.
Nuts, for instance, remains the biggest-selling actively purchased title, ahead of FHM, which has the highest average circulation of the paid-for titles at 280,392, buoyed by its subscription sales.
Anthony Gibson-Watt, buying director at Zed Media, said the long-term viability of the weekly magazines will depend on their ability to extend their brands into different media, pointing to the success of extensions such as Nuts TV.
In the men's monthly sector, Maxim continues to be hit by staggering circulation declines, with a 59.6% fall year on year and 44.5% period on period to 43,542 copies, leading one rival publisher to claim that Maxim is being published "as a contractual obligation". Dennis is contractually bound to publish the title under licence in the UK until 2012, following the sale of the title to US private equity group Quadrangle in July last year.
But chief executive James Tye countered that Dennis is investing in Maxim and that it reaches one million people across all platforms.
Meanwhile, Bauer Media's Arena was flat year on year and up 22% period on period, recording an average circulation of 30,896 - although its performance was inflated by giving away more than 5,000 free copies.
However, Vizeum's Murphy argues this is a positive step by Bauer, saying that the strategy of giving away free copies is an attempt to boost subscriptions to the same levels as competitors such as GQ and Esquire. Currently, about 30% of Esquire's sales are subscriptions, but publisher NatMags is looking for a 50/50 split between subscription and news-stand sales in two years' time.
James Mallinson, publisher of TalkSport Magazine, believes the men's magazine market has been in decline for about 10 years.
He says: "The men's market has always thrived on innovation, whether this is content driven, such as the 100 Sexiest phenomenon, or format-driven. The market has moved to go free over the past two years, as witnessed by the huge success of ShortList and Sport."
