New Free Men’s Mag To Hit The Market

A new free men’s weekly magazine entitled ShortList is to be launched into the
market by former FHM editor Mike Soutar as a rival to Sport magazine.

ShortList is reported to begin publishing on Thursday 20th September with a
print run of 500,000 of which 360,000 copies will be handed out in London. Other
cities at which the new title will be handed out are Birmingham, Manchester,
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds.

ShortList will be the same size as its main market rival Sport but will have
a much broader editorial remit covering entertainment, motoring, travel and news
as well as having a sport focus.

The launch will be supported by a £2m marketing campaign with the new title
to be edited by former Nuts editor Phil Hilton.

The owning company set up by Soutar to run ShortList is yet to be branded
although its backers include UK hedge fund GLG Partners as well as film producer
Matthew Vaughn and French Connection founder Stephen Marks.

Karl Marsden, who resigned as commercial director of News International’s
News Magazines, joins as managing director while Matt Phare, formerly creative
director for Emap’s men’s portfolio, is the creative director.

Analysts suggest that the free newspaper market is struggling to turn a
profit with only Metro of the existing publications reportedly in the
black.