http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rowena_..._have_a_future
I might pick up a two-year-old issue of FHM at the dentist out of curiosity and there's an ancient copy of Nuts beside the toilet in my boyfriend's shared house that I don't dare touch.
That's about the extent of my encounters with glossy pictures of naked women. But I'm not the lads' mag's problem.
The fact that most men I know are equally uninterested certainly is. It comes as little surprise that Dennis Publishing, owner of the troubled Maxim title, has decided to shut the publication after sales declined 41pc in the final half of last year and 86pc since their peak in 2000.
FHM, Nuts, Loaded and Zoo have also seen dramatic drops in sales - particularly in the last year. Many are now wondering whether the lads' mag is slowly shuffling off the top shelf.
It seemed like publishers had cracked the difficult male magazine market in the mid-1990s when the lads' mags began to thrive in the era of boozy, swaggering Britpop stars. Since then, the surreal humour, blokey jokes and irreverence have been largely eroded into crasser versions of the originals as the editors desperately try to grasp back readership that has steadily migrated online.
While soft porn was once premium content (even on the internet), it is now available for absolutely nothing - especially on adult user-generated content websites.
"It's just that there are more naked girls on the internet now," one former lads' mag reader tells me. "And the quality of the funny articles you used to get probably declined a bit as well. I don't buy them anymore, though that might just be because I grew up and decided I'd rather read the newspaper."
Actually I fear the real reason that Maxim is the magazine that has suffered the worst decline is a serious identity crisis - bravely heading upmarket as the others plunged further towards page three. In this month's issue, interspersed with scantily-clad women, there are articles about "stylish loafers" and "hallway art for gents".
I'm not convinced there's any such thing as posh porn in the mind of a lads' mag reader. It's like Horse and Hound crossed with The Daily Sport.
Dennis Publishing does not refer to any challenges facing Maxim in its statement, claiming simply that there is "consumer demand for online". Could this spin actually be approaching the truth? Dennis's more tabloidy men's magazine Monkey has done particularly well on its free internet site, with 1m hits a month and the added value of videos.
It's tasteless and over-the-top, but crucially, funnier, and I suspect much more on-target for Mr Lad of 2009 than Maxim.
I might pick up a two-year-old issue of FHM at the dentist out of curiosity and there's an ancient copy of Nuts beside the toilet in my boyfriend's shared house that I don't dare touch.
That's about the extent of my encounters with glossy pictures of naked women. But I'm not the lads' mag's problem.
The fact that most men I know are equally uninterested certainly is. It comes as little surprise that Dennis Publishing, owner of the troubled Maxim title, has decided to shut the publication after sales declined 41pc in the final half of last year and 86pc since their peak in 2000.
FHM, Nuts, Loaded and Zoo have also seen dramatic drops in sales - particularly in the last year. Many are now wondering whether the lads' mag is slowly shuffling off the top shelf.
It seemed like publishers had cracked the difficult male magazine market in the mid-1990s when the lads' mags began to thrive in the era of boozy, swaggering Britpop stars. Since then, the surreal humour, blokey jokes and irreverence have been largely eroded into crasser versions of the originals as the editors desperately try to grasp back readership that has steadily migrated online.
While soft porn was once premium content (even on the internet), it is now available for absolutely nothing - especially on adult user-generated content websites.
"It's just that there are more naked girls on the internet now," one former lads' mag reader tells me. "And the quality of the funny articles you used to get probably declined a bit as well. I don't buy them anymore, though that might just be because I grew up and decided I'd rather read the newspaper."
Actually I fear the real reason that Maxim is the magazine that has suffered the worst decline is a serious identity crisis - bravely heading upmarket as the others plunged further towards page three. In this month's issue, interspersed with scantily-clad women, there are articles about "stylish loafers" and "hallway art for gents".
I'm not convinced there's any such thing as posh porn in the mind of a lads' mag reader. It's like Horse and Hound crossed with The Daily Sport.
Dennis Publishing does not refer to any challenges facing Maxim in its statement, claiming simply that there is "consumer demand for online". Could this spin actually be approaching the truth? Dennis's more tabloidy men's magazine Monkey has done particularly well on its free internet site, with 1m hits a month and the added value of videos.
It's tasteless and over-the-top, but crucially, funnier, and I suspect much more on-target for Mr Lad of 2009 than Maxim.
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