By Jeff Bercovici

    As bad a year as it’s been for print advertising, there’s at least one group of magazines that are taking it like men.
    Maxim, Men’s Health, FHM and other men’s lifestyle books are among a dwindling number of magazines that continue to thrive even as the economy falls to pieces around them, according to the most recent report from the Publishers Information Bureau.
    Eight of the ten leading men’s titles showed healthy to outstanding dollar growth through the first four months of the year, a period during which revenue for the industry as a whole increased by only 0.3 percent.
    Seven of the ten also posted ad-page gains, while average ad page totals for the industry declined by 7.5 percent, according to PIB.
    Ad page totals across the industry for the month of April were down an average 9.5 percent from April 2000, and revenue slipped 1.2 percent in the month-to-month comparison.
    April was a particularly poor month for technology advertising, with tech pages down 29.1 percent and tech dollars falling 17.8 percent versus the same month last year.
    Looking at category spending year-to-date, retail, media & advertising, technology, automotive and financial, insurance & real estate have all shown considerable losses.
    Business magazines--especially business/technology hybrids--as well as personal finance titles and newsweeklies continue to post major advertising declines from last year.
    Meanwhile, scattered amid the sea of minus signs are an assortment of titles, including O, Real Simple, More, Shape and YM, that are still bucking the downward trend.
    Not surprisingly, Maxim and Stuff, the rowdy sister titles from Dennis Publishing, led the way in advertising growth for the men's magazines.
    Maxim’s page increases have finally slowed to mortal levels, with a 6.9 percent increase, giving the title 337.26 pages through April. But ad revenue at Maxim continues to spiral, up 62.9 percent to 42.8 million. 
     At Stuff, the gains were even larger, percentage-wise. Ad pages jumped 82.7 percent to 182.69 year-to-date, a gain that reflects the title’s frequency boost from bimonthly to monthly last August. 
    Revenue was up 194.8 percent to $9.3 million.
    A similar phenomenon can be seen at Emap USA’s FHM, which launched last February and went monthly in September.
    Pages in FHM were up 37 percent to 128.68 in the first four months of 2001, while dollars were up 354.8 percent to $5.9 million.
    Among men’s titles, only GQ and Men’s Journal failed to post page increases through April. GQ’s pages were off by only 0.6 percent to 517.81, while revenue totaled $31 million, a 16.8 percent increase from last year.
    Similarly, Men’s Journal slipped 3 percent in pages, to 271.11, but gained 13.3 percent in dollars to $15.1 million.
     Details was the only men’s lifestyle magazine to report less ad revenue this year than last, with dollars falling 8.9 percent to 8.3 million. 
    Pages at the magazine, which relaunched last fall out of Fairchild Publications with a scaled-back rate base, were up 3.3 percent to 236.25, despite publishing only three issues this year versus four in the same period in 2000.

Men's
Title	2001 pages	2000 pages	% change	2001 dollars (millions)	2000 dollars (millions)	% change
DETAILS	236.25	228.66	3.3	8.33	9.14	-8.9
ESQUIRE	316.99	313.78	1.0	19.73	17.19	14.8
FHM	128.68	93.9	37.0	5.89	1.30	354.8
GEAR	105.67	104.39	1.2	3.29	2.40	37.3
GQ	517.81	521.12	-0.6	30.99	26.53	16.8
MAXIM	337.26	315.44	6.9	42.84	26.29	62.9
MENS HEALTH	207.66	184.44	12.6	19.95	16.92	17.9
MENS JOURNAL	271.11	279.62	-3.0	15.07	13.30	13.3
PLAYBOY	217.39	245.17	-11.3	23.89	23.83	0.2
STUFF FOR MEN	182.69	99.99	82.7	9.34	3.17	194.8
Totals	2,521.51	2,386.51	5.7	179.33	140.07	28.0
Source: PIB

May 10, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.

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