The magazine racks have witnessed an explosion of new titles over the past ten years, a growth which has been especially evident in the number of sleek men’s editions which promote lifestyle, luxury and libido. However, the swelling ranks of attention-grabbing men’s magazines appear in stark contrast to the relatively small number of publishers, who are conspicuous only by their absence. The glaring question is to ask just how large the model magazine industry is, and perhaps who the major players are? As technology evolves, so do consumer tastes. Accordingly in this article we take a look at current trends within the magazine industry, and see if we are able to see through the lucrative haze of glossy covers into its electronic future. Whilst many industries seem to be only too keen to declare their net worth to the world, the colourful industry of the men’s magazine appears comparatively shy and elusive about its own figures, if not those of its subjects. In this article Icqurimage tries to hunt down some facts and figures to gauge the real proportions of the men’s magazine market.
The rise and rise of the men’s magazine industry
At the 35th FIPP World Magazine Congress, held amidst the splendour of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, William T. Kerr, President of the FIPP addressed an industry devoted to ‘creating editorial products that entertain, engage, excite and enlighten our readers’. The President reflected upon a steady increase in circulation of late, perhaps unspectacular when compared to the explosive growth at the end of the 90’s, which he described as ‘a period of growth I suspect we may not see replicated again anytime soon’.
However, some publishers are more open than others, and the UK’s number two consumer magazine publisher Emap recently announced pre-tax profits of £205m from a turnover of £1.1bn for 2005. The company showed an actual growth in revenues of 5% through September 2005, matching the UK’s pattern of growth in consumer magazine circulations and advertising. Emap’s expansion has been driven primarily by the strong increase in circulation of leading men’s magazine Zoo and from Internet advertising revenues, up 80% on the year.
W.H. Smith, one the UK’s leading magazine retailers, accredited its return to profitability in 2005 to increased magazine sales, with profits up 59% to £73m. Even Playboy, that iconic and ailing colossus of the men’s magazine industry, reported a net first quarter profit of $0.8 million for 2006, compared to a net loss for the last quarter of 2005 of $13 million. It would appear then that men’s magazines are very much back in vogue. Sex it seems never goes out of fashion, or at least fantasising about it doesn’t.
The British men's magazine market is currently thriving, with reports of a steady growth in circulations, profits and advertising revenues. Currently the biggest circulation war is between the weekly men’s publications Zoo (published by Emap) and Nuts (owned by IPC), and Zoo has recently surged by 30% in pursuit of its larger rival. Between them, Zoo and Nuts command a weekly circulation of 565,000 copies, equivalent to 1% of the total UK population.
The first issue of Maxim was published in the UK in May 1995 and it quickly became a global institution for Dennis Publishing, driving Penthouse into liquidation as it changed the publishing landscape. At their peak Maxim’s revenues were in the region of $145 million, with annual profits of $50 million, although they have since declined to between $35 and $40 million. In contrast, Dennis’ other men’s monthly, Stuff, is barely profitable. The City rumour mill has major publishers Time Inc. and Hachette Filipacchi eyeing Maxim for a bid in the region of $350-400 million, not bad for a solitary men’s magazine within a competitive and expanding market. Such an asking price would put the value of the global men’s magazine market, including such titles as Club, Hustler, Playboy, FHM and Zoo, at around $15-20 billion, no small sum for an industry whose product is essentially advertising eye candy.
A key market indicator is provided by Emap’s recent acquisition of the Worth Global Style Network (WGSN) for £140m, a leading international online source for the $770bn global fashion and apparel industry. WGSN.com is a trailblazer within the expanding online magazine market for fashion and retail which has grown fat from subscriptions. With over 170 staff and reported profits of £4m million in 2004 from a turnover of £15m million, their 2005 forecasts suggest an operating turnover of £19 million and a net profit of £7m. The era of the online magazine has truly dawned.
On the 16th February, 2006, CEO Christie Hefner announced that the Playboy digital edition had registered over 16,000 subscriptions, representing a growth rate of almost one hundred new subscribers a day. In response Penthouse, the recently revamped men's magazine which had previously filed for bankruptcy in 2004, launched its own digital edition in February 2006 in collaboration with Zinio Systems, from their headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida.
Will the print magazine still haunt the magazine kiosks in thirty years time? Given present trends it would seem unlikely. The evolution of 3G technology, the growth of PDAs and Blackberries, and Sony’s new paperless technology may come as good news for trees, but this Hi-tech revolution will augur the death of the traditional print industry, which may soon go the way of the tram. Customised wireless editions of many popular magazines such as GQ, Time Out and Glamour are already available to 75% of mobile phone users, although the term 'mobizines' is perhaps as likely to catch on as the Sinclair C5. To download an edition of their favourite magazine onto their handset, all users have to do is to text the word 'Mobi' followed by their favourite magazine title. With regular alerts concerning latest editions, mobile users are unlikely to miss an issue during idle moments standing in line at the water cooler. Condé Nast Interactive which publishes leading titles such as Vogue and Glamour, in partnership with O2 and Vodafone, intend to offer not only access to their latest content, but also the capacity to integrate novel ‘micro-ad’ formats to boost their revenues.
Mobile adult content generated some $400 million in revenues in 2004, and by 2009 the delivery of adult content to mobiles is predicted to have become a $2 billion global industry. Many mobile service providers prefer to believe that the real hard currency within mobile content is not in hosting porn, but in recording traffic, trends, and other user related data. As with most IT innovations, the adult industry was expected to lead the technological development of the wireless revolution, and mainstream corporate industry to follow their lead. However, due to the slow advent of high resolution wireless streaming technology, the adult industry was initially reluctant to commit towards the provision of 3G content. Although relatively late entrants to the wireless content market, 2005 saw an explosive entry of major adult media brands such as Playboy, Penthouse and Private into mobile content provision. Whilst the naysayers still raise their doubts over the suitability of mobile technology as a medium for adult content, the earnings of one market pioneer WContent went cash-flow ‘positive’ within only their second month of trading.