FHM's raunchy gambit fails, magazine to close

"What it tells us about the category is if you don't innovate, you die." That was the response of the editor of Stuff magazine to the news that FHM, one of the pack of "lads' magazines", is closing in March, according to a story in MediaDaily News.

FHM had shown signs of trouble in recent months, including being forced to cover up increasingly raunchy covers on newsstands and wholesale firing of editorial management. It chose to get more salacious and provocative with its covers, such as putting porn star Tera Patrick in a black-leather bikini bottom and elbow-length leather gloves. This seems to have backfired. Its rivals, seeing flattening or stalling sales, took a different approach.

In the rival camp, Maxim and Stuff shrugged off the "lad mag" moniker and tacked upstream, adjusting editorial content to follow readers into their late 20s and targeting affluent young male professionals. From 2005-2006, the median income of Stuff's readers rose from $59,527 to $61,535, according to MRI. More telling, the number of male college graduates increased 38%.