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Consumer magazine advertising grew by 3%, boosted mostly by Closer.

Zoo, the new weekly men's title that launched in January and competes against IPC Media's rival weekly Nuts, is said to be ahead of plans and sold more than 200,000 copies each week.

However, Zoo is still lagging behind Nuts, which is leading the new men's weekly market according to the recent magazine ABCs.

IPC's Nuts recorded an ABC of 290,337 and Zoo, which is soon to be revamped, reported a circulation of 200,125 copies six months after the two titles launched, backed by £8m advertising campaigns.

The third entrant into the market, H Bauer's Cut, is having an altogether more difficult time. It has been forced to issue media agencies with a "money-back guarantee" in an attempt to persuade them to take ads in the title.

Emap also reported a 13% growth in its television advertising revenues in a six-month trading statement published this morning.

Emap's music channel The Hits, on digital terrestrial platform Freeview, was the strongest performing channel for the group. Emap handles the sales for that TV station in-house, whereas sales for its stations on other digital TV platforms, including Smash Hits, Kerrang! and Kiss are currently handled by Sky Media.

Radio airtime for Emap stations proved weak in the first half of the six months to September 2004, but picked up in the second quarter of the financial year with national advertising performing particularly strongly.

However, Emap's French operations did not fare as well as the UK. Magazine newsstand revenues were down by 8%, with its titles Tele Star and Tele Poche haemorrhaging just over 20% following the launch of rival titles into their market. Ad revenues for its consumer titles in France also fell by 4%.

Looking forward, Emap says that future ad bookings for its UK consumer magazines are showing bigger growth than the first half of the financial year.

Predictions for Emap's French operations, however, remain tough for the next six months, although the relaunch of Tele Star earlier this month is felt to have done well and the relaunch of Tele Poche, the publisher's other flagging title, is in the pipeline.

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