4D Man: Straight Magazines

"Gaz7etta, 4D Man, Bauer Media, confident, individual, not as tribal, metrosexual, new lad, Spurmo, himbo, mandom, retrosexual, ubersexual, pomosexual, menaissance, new man, Danny Dyer, Zoo, Loaded, Maxim, FHM, Magculture, Old Spice, James May's Man Lab, fashion, Fantastic Man, dandyism, Vice, but not look gay, Wallpaper*, Gym Class, Inbetweeners, Manzine..."
Kevin Braddock of Manzine writes rather well in The Guardian about what this new 4D Man actually is, if anything - apart from a way to sell mens' magazines.
Fagburn is still waiting for his free copy of Gaz7etta to turn up. Ho-hum...

ABC Circulation Figures: Unreal Mens' Magazines

This is the time of year when ABC release magazine circulation figures for the first half of 2010.
Press Gazette takes a detailed look at how the leading titles are performing in each magazine sector here.
Magazines have been hit hard by the recession, none more so than "mens' lifestyle" titles, so although there has been a small decline in sales, this is seen as good news by Press Gazette; "Men’s lifestyle is holding up resiliently with just a 3.8 per cent drop year on year."
Here are the top titles:

Shortlist - 518,222 (1.5%)
Sport - 305,479 (0.0%)
Men's Health - 245,754 (-1.8%)
FHM - 192,586 (-18.1%)
Nuts - 147,134 (-22.0%)
GQ - 120,063 (0.0%)
Stuff - 85,370 (1.0%)
Zoo - 80,026 (-27.9%)
BBC Focus - 73,614 (8.0%)
Men's Fitness - 68,123 (0.2%)
Esquire - 58,151 (10.3%)
Healthy for Men - 56,356 (-15.6%)
Loaded - 53,591 (-26.3%)
Wired - 50,009 (N/A)
Front Magazine - 40,971 (7.8%)
Square Mile Magazine 20,204 (-24.8%)
Hedge Magazine 5,318 (-5.9%)

The two leading titles - Shortlist and Sport - are both given away free, and the figures are for their "distribution".
This could just be their print run, it doesn't factor in that many, or maybe most, copies could be left untouched in a large pile at the back of a pub or shop.
With the paid-for titles the biggest drop is for the lads' mags; FHM, Nuts, Zoo, and Loaded have seen sales drop by 18-28%.
Men's Health, GQ and Stuff are "doing well" just by holding steady.
ABCs are seen in the industry as reliable - though even "for sale" titles' figures may not be quite what they appear.
The Guardian's Media Monkey reports today that "Wired is proud to have reached its year one circulation target, posting an ABC total of 50,009... What Condé Nast omitted to mention was that it only hit its 50,000 target by giving away 10,000 copies."
But then even quality newspapers can bump up their circulation figures by including "bulk sales"; copies given away free by hotels, airlines, online supermarkets and so on.
Without an ABC audit any publications circulation or sales figures should be taken with a large spoonful of salt.
The numbers are intended to lure potential advertisers to a title, and with no independent verification claimed sales could be twice or even ten times what they actually are.
You may have noticed that there are no gay titles on the ABC mens' magazines list.
That's not because ABC don't regard gay mags as real mens' magazines, but because no gay title has its circulation audited by ABC.
Bent used to have one - which put it at 60,000 copies. But that's for a free title, and represents copies distributed/printed.
The Pink Paper - also free - (and technically not a mens' magazine, as it was for women as well) - had an ABC from February 2006.
MediaWeek reported at the time; "The free fortnightly tabloid newspaper became the first gay and lesbian publication to have an ABC certificate this month. Its audited circulation is 40,000 copies per edition..."
"Editor Tris Reid-Smith said: "It has taken a lot of hard work to get us to this stage. But it now seems clear that the Pink Paper has an amazing future ahead of it. And the fact that we are starting with an honest, proven circulation figure puts us head and shoulders above our competitors.""
Was Mr Reid-Smith suggesting that the unaudited unproven circulation figures claimed by other gay magazines are dishonest?
Tris Reid-Smith is now the editor of GT magazine.
In their latest media pack GT claims a circulation of - and I quote - "68,143".
Fagburn would like to suggest that perhaps the publishers of GT are being rather modest.
Surely the sales of this excellent magazine must now be closer to 10 million, if not more?
Although - sadly - there is no way of verifying such a figure.

Mens' Magazines: ShortList Man

As today was another slow news day during the Silly Season, I went and picked up a copy of the free mens' magazine, ShortList.
I came to it blind. Never knowingly having looked through a copy before, and deliberately not looking online at what they were trying to do with the title.
Its strapline is; "For men with more than one thing on their minds' - a reply I guess to Loaded's "For men who should know better', and clearly an attempt to set out a different stall to the new wave of tits-out-for-the-lads mags, Zoo and Nuts.
There are no scantily unclad babes in ShortList. The only bit of exposed flesh on view is a man's chest in an advert for anti-perspirant on page 47.
This could be advertiser-driven, rather than prudishness. Big money advertisers find full-on sexual content a turn-off.
Apart from one of those wrap-around cover ads for some action movie starring Tom Cruise (!), the first three ads you see are full-page ones for hair dye,Head & Shoulders and Gillette - apparently it's still "the best a man can get".
Shortlist even has its own Style & Grooming section - tellingly bigger than both the technology and sport ones.
The whole magazine took me about - ooh - five minutes to peruse.
There was nothing in it I wanted to read, but then it's clearly not aimed at men like me.
Who is it aimed at? I guess young, urban-living, middle class men (it only clicked a little later how close this was to the acronym for Young Urban Professionals...)
The other thing that's noticeable is how almost the entire editorial content reads like advertorial.
The only exceptions were a jokey last page ("Fun + knowledge = funledge" - oh do fuck off), a weekly column by professional New Bloke Danny Wallace, and a three page feature; 'Are You A Sexist?'
That article's intro also - subconsciously or not - seemed to be setting out ShortList's desired reader demographic.
"We're all enlightened men, but with the celebration of alpha males such as Don Draper, are traditional gender values actually bubbling underneath the veneer of the 'New Man'?"
Everything else is about something you can buy.
Perhaps the ShortList man mantra is: No sex please, we're shopping.