Men's magazines: lad's mags II

Loaded: the lad's mag Back to top

In May 1994, IPC launched Loaded. Its unselfconscious, irreverent style defined a 'laddish' culture that was ground-breaking and was to reverberate around the world. On television, the same laddish element was seen in BBC programmes such as the sitcom Men Behaving Badly, the sports quiz They Think It's All Over and the irreverent news quiz Have I Got New for You (in which one of the teams was led by Private Eye magazine editor Ian Hislop). Other TV presenters and stand-up comics were part of the trend that encouraged lads mags, such as Paul Merton and Frank Skinner (who was featured on the cover of issue 6 - 'Nudge, nudge, wink, wink: Frank Skinner's world of smut'). 

Editors are, by nature, individualists who tend to react badly to strait jackets. They will use their own language and terminology. In fact, it is their attitude and style that may be the difference between a top titles and an also-ran. Loaded's founding editor James Brown brought in attitude by the bucketful. His regular editor's letter was entitled 'page three', a reference to the Sun tabloid newspaper, which had become famous for its topless women on that very page. In the first issue of Loaded, Brown wrote: 'What fresh lunacy is this? Loaded is a new magazine dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of sex, drink, football and less serious matters. Loaded is music, film, relationships, humour, travel, sport, hard news and popular culture. Loaded is clubbing, drinking, eating, playing and eating. Loaded is for the man who believes he can do anything, if only he wasn't hungover.'

Of course, this is too long for a front cover, so the defining lads mag portrayed itself as 'For men who should know better.' There were variations on this: 'For men who should know letter' for a July 1995 cover on David Letterman; and '...snow better' for the January 1995 cover showing Santa being knicked. 

The nature of its success can be seen in the sales figures. The first issue sold 59,400 copies and Loaded broke the 100,000 sales barrier with its ninth issue. Its first audited yearly sales figure was 96,000 - and this rose by 82% to 174,763 for the period Jul-Dec 1995.

Loaded deputy editor Tim Southwell described the early days of lads mags in his book Getting Away with It (Ebury, 1998).

Men's Health first issue: a new type of men's magazine in the UK

The rise of FHM Back to top

He took Brown's philosophy, but added a dimension; everything in FHM had to be accessible to readers. In a Guardian interview (17 February 1997, page 7), he espoused a "mantra" that everything in the magazine had to be: "funny, sexy, useful". Writers could never cover any activities that readers couldn't also take part in. So phone numbers and addresses were to be found at the end of most articles. In retrospect, this sounds simple, but Soutar's relaunch was in a highly competitive sector, in which IPC, Conde Nast and National Magazines were already active.

And more competition had arrived from Dennis's Maxim (Aug 95) - with Gill Hudson as editor - and Rodale's US-import Men's Health (David Hale, Feb 95), as well as Arena launching the bi-annual Hommes Plus as a spin-off, effectively going to eight issue a year.

 

Profile of men's magazines by mid-1996 Back to top
	Sales (ABC Jan-Jun 96)	Age % 15-34	ABC1 Social grade %	Male %	Single %
Loaded	238,955	92	73	81	76
FHM	181,581	89	70	82	69
GQ	131,074	81	75	79	62
The Face	112,227	91	72	64	72
Esquire	107,058	78	81	74	58
Arena	93,513	88	68	77	75
Source: Loaded media pack, 1997