'Glamour' cuts rivals down to size to become best-selling magazine

Glamour, the handbag-sized glossy that spawned a host of imitators, has broken through the 600,000 circulation barrier to become the UK's best-selling monthly magazine.

It has whipped the title from under the nose of lad's mag FHM, which has suffered from the success of the new men's weekly titles Nuts and Zoo.

Three years after its launch and two years after knocking Cosmopolitan off its throne as the best-selling women's monthly, Glamour recorded an average circulation of 605,747 between January and June, 5 per cent up on the previous year, according to new figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

In contrast, FHM, famous for its "High Street Honeys" pictures of pretty girl-next-door types, saw its circulation fall 4.5 per cent year on year to 573,713.

Cosmopolitan, which now appears in a "travel-size" edition similar to Glamour's own A5 format alongside its standard A4 size, suffered a slight circulation drop of 1.2 per cent to 456,447 compared to 2003.

Glamour's publisher Simon Kippin believes the key to the magazine's continued success is content rather than size. "In the end, content, what's between the covers, will out. As we've seen from all the competition who are unashamedly imitating us, nothing comes close," Mr Kippin said.