"We launched and everyone said, 'This will never work'," says Greg Miall, publishing director of free men's weekly Sport, recalling the opinion of many in September 2006.
Eleven months later and Sport is in rude health. Last week's ABCs revealed that its weekly circulation of 317,093 is now 5,000 more than men's monthly FHM, making it the market's leading men's mag.
Unsurprisingly, newly wed Miall is on buoyant form. Grinning and contagiously enthusiastic, the sharp-suited, tanned publisher is enjoying riding Sport's wave of success.
But while Sport has beaten FHM due to the latter's falling sales, it has yet to turn a profit.
"It's a three-year plan to break even," Miall says, though he is confident it will do so before then.
The rationale behind Sport's launch was to provide a compellingly written, sharply designed free men's mag that appealed to high-end readers and advertisers alike - much like another upcoming launch by a certain Mike Soutar.
"There was, and still is, a gap in the men's magazine market," says Miall. "If you're a magazine advertiser, there aren't many high-circulation quality magazines, except maybe Men's Health. Or you have Zoo and Nuts, which is salacious content. If you're an advertiser, do you want to be next to a pair of breasts? It might work for Gillette, but not Tag Heuer."
Ripe market
Sport had already proved successful in France. Across the Channel, Miall and his cohorts realised the UK was a ripe market for a similar title. "Statistically, the UK is the most sports-mad country in Europe," Miall says. "We took the French magazine and adjusted it for the UK. We kept half and the other half we redesigned."
Sport is undeniably a good-looking magazine. Issues have featured striking cover shots of football icons such as David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Thierry Henry.
Rooney was apparently so impressed with his portrait that he asked for a copy to frame.
In keeping with its sophisticated look, Sport's target market is the ABC1 males so attractive to advertisers, so a vital factor in its success is its distribution model.
Two out of three copies are distributed outside London Underground and mainline stations on Friday mornings. "We limit our print run to the top 150 stations," Miall says. It targets these using a hierarchy of stations based on geodemographic data. It also distributes to Eurostar, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic passengers and at gyms and health clubs.
According to Miall, 82% of its readers are white-collar workers, which he asserts gives advertisers targeting this group a much better hit rate than if they advertised elsewhere.
"The Metro distributes 550,000 copies in London, everywhere where there's transport, and has a 64% white-collar readership. I consider that 36% wastage."
Detractors argue that a publication not being actively purchased by consumers is less valuable to advertisers, which Miall disputes.
"Agencies might say on a cost-per-thousand basis it should be cheaper. I'd say my audience is a lot better than that of a traditional newspaper. Fundamentally, if you are reading something interesting, then you don't care if you've paid for it or not. Free is a distribution and marketing method."
Certainly, advertisers appear to view Sport as a viable means to hit targets. Premium brands regularly gracing its pages include Canon, BMW and Mercedes. "After six months, we sold out all our advertising space," reveals Miall. Now, demand is outstripping supply, he adds, and space is sold way before issues close, with 98% of advertisers re-advertising.
Market dominance
While Sport now dominates the free men's market, is the news that lads' mag guru and former FHM editor Mike Soutar is to launch a free men's lifestyle weekly called ShortList next month of concern to Miall?
Apparently not. "I welcome it," he says. "Imitation is the highest form of flattery. It validates the concept. I want them to succeed."
Presumably the fact that ShortList will come out on Thursdays, a day before Sport, helps. "If they had decided to come out on Friday morning, we would have been in a head-to-head war," he concedes.
Miall clearly sees free titles as one of the big growth areas for magazines and acknowledges that the paid-for men's mag segment is being hit hard: "It's because they've deteriorated in quality."
Conversely, Sport has raised the game in the free market. "It's possible to do high quality," he insists.
Sport recently took a three-week publication break to give the 22-strong staff time to work on some design and distribution issues. "It's proven to be a good decision," he says. "We've now secured access to Canary Wharf Tube station from Friday."
The very deep pockets of Docklands' bankers are going to make Sport an even more appealing prospect to advertisers.
CV
2006 Publishing director, Sport magazine
2004 Global sales director, Metro International
2003 Commercial director, Metro France and Metro Poland
2002 International account director, Metro International
2001 Insead MBA
2000 Business development manager, Go Fly
1998 Executive assistant to chief executive, Go Fly
1996 Associate consultant, Bain & Company.