The new presently unnamed magazine will be handed out to commuters in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds. A £2m promotional budget will support the launch. It will be edited by Phil Hilton, a former editor of Nuts magazine.

The weekly Sport, which was launched in London last year, currently has a circulation of over 300,000 copies and the publisher has said there are plans to launch the title outside London in the near future with Manchester and Liverpool likely to be early recipients of the weekly.

Lads and men’s’ magazines, having been the darlings of publishing a few years ago, have now lagged the market for a while as competition increased at a time when the novelty factor appears to have waned. Going free makes a lot of sense but as ever, content and distribution will prove critical.

The new title’s target market is ABC1 men and there will be an accompanying web site with daily news, sport, motoring and entertainment. The publisher is planning to introduce local content.

Publication date is likely to be a Thursday offering potential for week end listings.

The investors include Stephen Marks of French Connection, Scottish publisher DC Thomson and financiers GLG Partners.

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