A free men’s magazine, positioned between the naked entertainment of Nuts and Zoo and the upmarket GQ, will be launched in the autumn with the backing of several high-profile magazine and business figures.

Around half a million copies of the weekly title will be given away in London and in five other cities, supported by a £7.5 million investment raised by the former Emap and IPC boss Sir David Arculus from investors including Stephen Marks, the founder of French Connection, and Matthew Vaughn, the film-maker.

The title is the brainchild of Mike Soutar, the former editorial director of Time Warner’s IPC Media, where he presided over the launch of Nuts. It is one of the titles that he hopes to side-step in another attempt to reinvent the men’s market, which has become dominated by downmarket titles.

Mr Soutar said that the paid-for market was dominated by a “tit for tit battle” between Nuts and Emap’s Zoo, which left many older men unimpressed. “There won’t be any flesh on display,” he said. “We want to create a title aimed at 18-to35 ABC1 men that they won’t be embarassed to be seen holding.”

Mr Soutar, who will run the company behind the title, refused to release the name of the magazine, codenamed Alpha One. He believes that giving the magazine away is the only way to “guarantee a massive reach” from day one.

“It’s difficult to reach consumers with a launch because the newstand is now so congested,” he said.

The new company is led by a group of former IPC executives, including Phil Hilton, the launch editor of Nuts, and Karl Marsden, an advertising executive. All three have been working on the project for about nine months, gradually raising finance under the auspices of Sir David, who may become chairman once the company formally launches.

Other backers include DC Thomson, publisher of the Beano comic, and GLG Partners, the City hedge fund.

Men’s magazines have come under heavy pressure in recent months as readers grow tired of the products and turn to online alternatives. This month Emap reported a 13 per cent decline in quarterly advertising revenue after the publisher had to renegotiate several deals after weak performance in the men’s market.

FHM, the monthly that was once the market leader, suffered a 25.9 per cent collapse in circulation to 371,263 in the second half of 2006, the last figures that are publicly available. Even the two weeklies have come under pressure, with Zoo falling a fifth and IPC’s Nuts suffering only a 3.8 per cent decline in circulation to 295,002 by cutting its price.

The launch team is pinning its hopes on the relative strength of the upmarket end of the market, which is dominated by Conde Nast’s monthly GQ. While its circulation is steady, its 127,505 figure remains modest compared to the downmarket ladsmags.

Alpha One will be mainly hand-distributed in Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds, although about 15 per cent of copies will be given away at gyms, clothing retailers and other places where magazines are not traditionally on sale.

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