Men's Health takes on FHM with compact edition launch

LONDON - NatMags’ Men’s Health has moved its digital ad sales in-house and plans to launch a new travel-size compact edition.

The new format of Men’s Health will go head to head with the new FHM compact, to be launched by Emap in the spring. The compact Men’s Health will be sold exclusively through WHSmith Travel from March for six months.

In addition, Men’s Health is taking control over its growing online ad sales. The title has moved online ad sales in-house, taking the function away from Hearst Digital, NatMags’ digital division that sells ads for online titles.

Publisher Alun Williams said: “We can take more control over possible cross-platform deals in-house.”

The Hearst Digital Network was launched in 2006 to aggregate NatMags’ broad online content, but last year lost its managing director Nancy Cruickshank to online video service VideoJug. She was replaced by Alex Ballantyne.

A strategic review of NatMags’ digital operations last year concluded that Hearst would in future focus on a smaller number of sites including Handbag.com, Getlippy.com and Allaboutyou.com.

Meanwhile, Men’s Health is expecting a positive result in the soon-to-be-released magazine ABCs, having reported 11 consecutive year-on-year circulation increases. It increased its circulation to 238,980 in the first half of 2007, up by 1.3% compared to the same period in 2006.

Media Week 22-Jan-08