Fairfax boosts circulation of Sport & Style in anticipation of rival launch
Fairfax is to switch the publication day of its monthly Sport & Style supplement to Mondays in Sydney, and start physically inserting it into the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to avoid uncollected piles of the magazine being left behind in newsagents.
The move appears to be in readiness for an anticipated push into the men’s market by a rival publisher.
The monthly title launched a year ago last month. It features high end coverage of global sporting celebrities. However, uncollected piles were often visible in newsagents where customers were often unaware it came with the newspaper, hence the mechanical insertion.
Announcing the change today, Fairfax also said that it would be switching from a glossy to matt cover stock and upping Sport & Style’s print run by 30,000 to 370,000.
While the title had always been distributed with The Age in Melbourne on a Monday, the SMH had distributed it on a Thursday.
Flagging potential new entries into the market, publisher Lisa Hudson said: “The top end of the men’s market is performing very strongly and it’s interesting to see our competitors talking about new men’s offerings.”
She claimed that Sport & Style is the highest circulating men’s magazine in Australia. Although it uses little content from its French cousin, the Sport & Style brand is licenced from L’Equipe.
A spokesman for News Ltd, Fairfax’s largest rival, told Mumbrella that the company had no comment.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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good magazine but not sure it’s aiming at an audience this wide. circ increase is only worthwhile if the audience is relevant … not sure 45 yo Joan from Double Bay will do anything with S&S but throw it out.
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It wasnt 30k to 370k. It was 300k to 370k. 30k for a NIM wouldnt be worth anything lol.
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