By Alyson Fixter
The battle of the lads’ weeklies has broken out again – with IPC
changing the publication day of Nuts from Thursday to Tuesday to go
head-on with Emap’s Zoo.
IPC has also slashed the cover price of this week’s Nuts from £1.20 to 60p in the hope of boosting sales.
But
the publishers say Nuts will keep its “Women: Don’t expect any help on
a Thursday” advertising slogan because it has been “so successful”.
Related
The
latest ABC figures show Nuts has maintained a 35,000-copy lead over
Zoo, although its circulation was down five per cent in six months at
the same time as Zoo’s rose 20 per cent.
The move could be seen as an attempt by IPC to lure Zoo readers to Nuts by hitting the newsstands on the same day.
But
an IPC spokesman said the decision had been made in response to the
desire of Nuts readers to get the title earlier in the week.
Content from our partners
He added: “With a new launch you make changes every week as the magazine develops.
“The men’s weekly market is a little over a year old – still very much in its infancy.
“We’ve
found that patterns of purchase have evolved over the last 14 months
and that, increasingly, men are not only very comfortable buying a
weekly magazine, but they are eager to get hold of it sooner in the
week. We’re responding to that enthusiasm.”
He added that Nuts had always been available on a Wednesday, rather than a Thursday, in certain parts of the country.
Zoo
editor Paul Merrill said: “We’re extremely happy with the way the mar
ket is shaping up, and we fully understand why Nuts are panicking.
“We
now have two very different magazines. Zoo is the more intelligent,
funny men’s weekly which covers comedy, football, cars and proper news,
while they have 57 topless pictures in this week alone.
“They might be coming out the same day, but we’ll still be first for all the best stories.”
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
