With so much out there for men to read and watch, who needs monthly magazines?
Lads' mags like Maxim are struggling because men are spoilt for choice, says former Loaded editor James Brown.
The Observer, Sunday 5 April 2009
Boom, there goes another men's magazine: Maxim, repositioned as an internet offering but in reality unable to sustain itself as a print title. Maxim started out in the mid Nineties as a "me-too" publication launched on the heels of Loaded and FHM, but became the biggest men's mag in the world when its owner, Felix Dennis, rolled the format out in foreign markets, including the US. Now Maxim is extinct in its country of origin. It followed the quiet death last month of Arena, which expired due to old age and lack of personality.
There are many reasons why the monthly men's
magazines sector is collapsing. They became too narrow in focus, driven mainly by covers selling sex, and they were rendered less relevant by the arrival of weeklies (Nuts and Zoo), frees (Shortlist and Sport) and specialist male newspaper supplements (The Mail on Sunday's Live and Observer Sport Monthly). But I would argue there is another reason; the wider male media landscape is now so sophisticated and its audience so well served, there isn't any need to wait 30 days for titles that feel out of date by the time they appear.
Men's media is visible across the board and the content, tone and talent showcased in the first wave of magazine titles now form the mainstay of other male-specific mediums. An editor likes to hear that their magazine makes readers feel like a member of a club, but that club is now moving into different mediums and locations.
Broadcast media have snatched the initiative from print and exhibit an understanding of what men want. In the early nineties, men's media revolved around entertainment such as Baywatch, Radio Five Live's football phone-in 606 and cowboy films on a Sunday afternoon. The market had barely evolved since the 1970s, the days of Pan's People and Jimmy Hill on Match of the Day
What Loaded delivered to advertisers when we launched in 1994 was an understanding of what men were really interested in, rather than what PRs and marketers wanted us to be into. Loaded was unsophisticated, but it acknowledged that men could enjoy a contradictory array of pursuits, from outdoor sports to indoor pub games, new-fangled technology like the internet to the traditional male love of football, war and aggression.
I realised quickly that anything guys felt passionately about worked as a Loaded story. Hanging out with the New Orleans police force or members of The Clash, going trawling from Scarborough or surfing in Newquay. Raving about boxers, golfers and old footballers, or getting wasted on drugs. All could coexist, as long as it was all delivered with authenticity and attitude.
A similar approach is evident in radio, TV and online. Six years ago I wrote about the feminisation of terrestrial TV and suggested that men were being driven into their extra-terrestrial sheds, but men's media has spread and no longer exists solely on obscure satellite channels.
A typical content page in a mid-90s men's magazines consisted of crime, action, sport, humour, travel and motors. Now there's an array of dedicated channels for those subjects. Male-oriented crime drama has arrived in the shape, among others, of The Sopranos, The Shield and The Wire, spawning a new genre of flash, knowing and very male shows.
Sky Sports is probably the most magnetic television brand a man can get. But its magazine shows and lighthearted expert analysis have given it authenticity. Sunday Supplement is the insider's guide to football, where professional writers offer their insights into the game, a Newsnight Review in boots, shorn of pretension.
Soccer AM gives fathers and sons that pan-generational bonding moment, just as Dr Who does; it is the greatest Saturday morning magazine show since the format was invented by the Banana Splits. And Jeff Stelling's panel of former players on Sky's Soccer Saturday, commentating lightheartedly but passionately on matches only they can see, is compulsive viewing. There simply weren't as many great media destinations for men 10 years ago.
Crime and sport are complemented by the terrestrial channels' understanding of the armchair explorer in us all. While we sit in our living rooms, Bruce Parry and Ray Mears drag us away to danger. Parry is the Jeremy Clarkson of the jungle.
Meanwhile, Clarkson's Top Gear reinvented itself by borrowing the live audience format from shows such as Later with Jools Holland and Sky Sports' Soccer AM. The BBC understands that men like seeing other men crossing land and sea in the most basic ways, by bike or by boat.
Comedy is a mainstream TV staple, but by rebranding itself as Dave, UKTV G2 created an immediate entry point for lighthearted banter. The name suggests it is a clever but funny channel that it's OK to like. Strangely enough, I talked to ITV4 a few years ago when it was struggling to raise awareness of its cleverly scheduled channel for men. I suggested changing the name to reflect its nature, possibly by using a bloke's name, as I did with my magazine Jack. When Dave launched a year later, I had to check my notes to make sure it wasn't a figment of my imagination.
So from Bravo to FX to the documentary, sports and crime channels, men were saturated by TV aimed at them, just as men's titles grew stale. Magazines are static, but programming is instant; multi-channel TV and catch-up services mean they can be watched anytime.
Television is not the only beneficiary of the creative explosion started by Loaded, FHM et al. Radio also has its success stories. Between 1pm and 9pm, I can happily survive without talking to another human being. I listen avidly to Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs on Talk Sport, who have transplanted the humour and intelligence of 90 Minutes and Goal - titles they used to edit. Like Sky Sports, Loaded or any other mass market male medium that worked, Talk Sport reflects how its audiences truly are, rather than how they should be.
After Talk Sport's lively Bow Time drive time show, I can switch to the BBC's 6 music for Steve Lamacq's indie kid offering before Marc Riley, the former Fall band member who is perhaps the closest we have to a new John Peel, comes on.
All of these broadcast brands give men their community. Loaded's success stemmed from us being the first, but now you no longer need to walk to a newsagent. The same content is out there, but it's being delivered faster and brighter.
For magazines to survive, they need to be more than paper and ink. When Condé Nast publisher Peter Stuart and I started GQ Man of The Year, we knew it could become an annual event, and I don't believe the NME would still be around if it weren't for the tours and club nights it organises. The big publishers failed to understand what the brands might have become with a little more ambition. My great frustration at Loaded was IPC's seeming inability to exploit its potential by turning it into a retail, travel or nightclub brand. That can be explained, in part, by the masses of money the men's sector made initially: publishers did not feel the need to plan for the longer term.
The publishers also failed to capitalise on this initial success by developing a generational string of titles in the way Emap did with music titles in the late eighties and early nineties. A reader who bought Smash Hits in their teens could switch to Kerrang, Q or Mojo - all Emap titles - as they grew older. Owners also failed to build a web of men's titles in the same way women's publishing has, by launching products for all age groups and demographics. So the talent, ideas, and customers have simply gone elsewhere.
