Twenty years ago the magazine shelves were ablaze with the colors of men’s titles that dominated our coffee tables and display racks. The magazine was the perfect medium with which to project images of feminine beauty in the days before podcasts, HD TV, and broadband. Glossy magazines made Paul Raymond, Hugh Hefner & Bob Guccione into social icons of the seventies & eighties, playboy entrepreneurs who made millions from selling their vision of luxury, love and penthouses to the masses. Modern-day alchemists who could turn base pigments into gold, these men inspired an explosion of new men’s titles including FHM, Maxim, Club, & Zoo. Over recent years however, the circulation of men’s titles has entered into steep decline, with the latest ABC figures suggesting more of the same. So whatever happened to the favorite peccadillo of young men, dreamers and playboys? Is the Internet, and its surfeit of free content, killing the men’s magazine, or have their natural audience transferred to other media such as the ubiquitous Play Stations and iPods? Are the big publishers successfully adapting to the explosive changes of the new media, or are they evolutionary dinosaurs who appear unable to adapt and survive in the digital age? Finally, has the transfer of image-based content from print to digital form become comparable to the gold bullions of the Spanish Main, as waves of digital pirates plunder their wares?
Recently Christie Hefner, Chief Executive of Playboy, unveiled their new Internet strategy. To counter stagnant sales and tiny profits, Playboy has decided to give away more of its precious content and to slash its magazine circulation by over 13% in an effort to reduce costs. As part of their revised policy towards the viability of free content, Playboy have increased both the provision of online content and also the proportion of that content which may be viewed free of charge. As part of their ongoing strategy to seduce a greater share of the online market, Playboy have fallen into line with other successful pioneers, such as Danni’s Hard Drive, who enriched their provision of streaming video and other explicit content for subscribers. The prevailing market view is that increasing the provision of free content drives greater Internet traffic, and that such increases in traffic augment advertising revenues and boost the numbers of subscribers. Well, that’s the theory anyway, but do the numbers really add up?
Shortlist is an interesting concept, not only due to the experience and business acumen that lies behind it, but also because it claims to target wealthy young men raised upon a diet of teenage titles. Mike Soutar, famed impresario of Smash Hits, FHM & Nuts, fervently believes that overt nudity deters magazine sales, distracting as it does from the more general content offered by modern men’s magazines. Perhaps he has a point when he suggests that the general content of FHM, Maxim and Zoo is pitched at the no man’s land which lies between explicit top shelf titles and more mainstream magazines. Soutar holds the view that younger consumers no longer expect to pay for content, and that existing niche publications and adolescent weeklies poorly serve advertisers of luxury goods. Perhaps, but then again it is only a small social elite that buy sports cars, yachts, designer watches, or holiday villas, and to such individuals the price of a men’s magazine represents chump change. After all, why work hard to be able to afford the exclusivity of such trappings, and then deign to read the same free magazines as the masses? The reality is that the Ferrari’s & Fairline’s of this world don’t tend to advertise in men’s weeklies. After all their brands are iconic and the public appetite for images of their products speaks volumes for their presence within the popular consciousness. However, it will be interesting to see where the advertising dollars will flow as the Internet and a rash of free titles sound the death knell for many struggling titles.
FHM were perhaps the first men’s title to anticipate a mass migration of male readers towards digital formats, although Playboy might disagree. Digital editions now abound, and these offer publishers a cheaper option for international distribution. Online editions appeal particularly to the technologically tuned younger generations, who no longer associate content with hard copy. Some new titles, such as Every Model Magazine, are distributed primarily through pdf downloads and employ SMS text mobile billing to create a revenue stream. Others prefer to rely solely upon advertising, subsidy publishing, or upon subscription-based models.