The Media Blog

Lads mags and women's weeklies lead mag nosedive

The latest magazine circulation figures for the first half of 2012 do not make pretty reading. Among the worst hit are women’s lifestyle titles and lads mags.

However regular readers will be delighted to hear Private Eye goes from strength to strength. It is up nearly 10 per cent over the first six months of the year, based on a continued commitment to high quality journalism and the rich material afforded by political and media industry scandal.

But elsewhere on the magazine shelf it's looking pretty brutal. A whole host of magazines such as More!(-37.6%), Reveal (-25.1%), Love It! (-18.9%), Pick Me Up (-18.6%), Look (-16.7%), Now (-16.1%) and New! (-14.9%) are tanking. Closer (-6.3%), Best (-6%) and Chat (-6%) aren’t fairing much better.

It was bad news also for OK! which lost nearly a quarter of its readership year-on-year and Hello said goodbye to 15 per cent of its readership. Celebrity gossip mag Heat is also in a continued decline, down 11.2 per cent year-on-year.

In the world of men's magazines and lads mags things are looking bleak.

The biggest loser is arguably Nuts. Not only is the magazine down 21 per cent, that follows a £500,000 relaunch last year which was intended to be a response to a previous 20 per cent drop in reader numbers. It seems that relaunch didn't work.

Its rival title Zoo is also down 15 per cent, while FHM had a terrible year, losing 20 per cent of readers. 

A sobering day at the office for the UK's magazine publishing industry.

Creepy magazine ad of the day

"What's that in your jewellery box?"

"It's my collection of severed baby hands and feet."

Privates on parade: Radio Times issues apology

The Radio Times has been caught not so much with its pants down, but with a commando's flies open:

"It has come to our attention that an apparently innocent photo of the Royal Marines’ 42 Commando unit – printed by Radio Times in good faith... contains the sight of one of the marines playing a prank... What we took to be the marine's finger proved, on closer inspection, to be another part of his anatomy."

The apology became the subject of a Twitter trend, but the best tweet by far came from within the ranks of the Radio Times and the account of editor Ben Preston:

Surely there's nothing that offends a man's pride more than being told somebody would need glasses to see your manhood. It would certainly be the low point of any date.

Maybe she's born with it...? Maybe it's Fotoshop...

A brilliant skewering here of a million different cosmetics ads and whole swathes of the lifestyle magazine industry, by US film maker Jesse Rosten (it's also not a bad advert for the industry's favourite photo editing software - though I'm sure that wasn't the point):

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Jemima Khan leaves Indie for New Statesman

Jemima Khan, 8 June 2011:

"I am thrilled with the opportunity to be associate editor of the Independent and i. I am a huge fan of both papers and am very excited to be able to work with a talented team of writers and editors."

Jemima Khan, 17 October 2011:

"I am delighted to become a permanent part of the exceptional team at the New Statesman. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Independent but the challenge of a wider role at the New Statesman was too tempting."

Khan of course was hugely successful as guest editor of the New Statesman back in April this year. Her ability to attract guest contributor Hugh Grant gave the New Statesman a real scoop when his account of secretly recording a conversation with News Of The World phone hacker Paul McMullan went viral on social networks.

Now Khan just needs to follow that. No pressure then.

Primal Scream's misplaced "disgust"

As if home secretary Theresa May hasn't been criticised enough for her Tory party conference speech, now rock group Primal Scream have hit out at the use of their song Rocks as she exited the stage.

But it seems it wasn't their song at all.

Primal Scream issued a statement saying:

"Primal Scream are totally disgusted that the Home Secretary Theresa May ended her speech at the Tory party conference with our song Rocks. How inappropriate... Hasn't she listened to the words?"

The last point is a good one. Why would a home secretary, with responsibility for policing in the UK, choose to walk off to a song whose lyrics include:

"Dealers keep dealing
Thieves keep thieving
Whores keep whoring
Junkies keep scoring...

...Ain't no use in praying
That's the way it's staying, baby"

But sadly it seems she didn't. The Independent reports the mix-up is due to similarities with a different song altogether - Bohemian Like You by the Dandy Wharhols - and a number of misleading Tweets which lead the Scottish rockers to react so angrily.

The Independent reports:

"The confusion appears to have begun when Labour MP Kerry McCarthy, tipped off by someone in the hall, wrote on Twitter that the Primal Scream song was used... Tipped off by journalists at the conference who had received confirmation that the offending track was played, the band's management issued the strongly-worded statement from the musicians."

Modern music eh! All sounds the same... even to the people who wrote it, it would seem.

(Update: This blog post initially referenced only Primal Scream's angry statement and not the reports that the wrong song had been played.)

Dorries brands Osborne "immature and tacky" and "lacking in class" over smutty GQ speech

Earlier this week George Osborne was awarded 'Politician Of The Year' by GQ magazine. Equally shocking - to some at least - was his acceptance speech which included a slightly clumsily delivered joke about politicians and GQ readers being different kinds of "wankers":

One of the most outspoken critics of Osborne's line in playground humour is fellow Tory Nadine Dorries. Dorries has endured a week in which she saw her badly flawed arguments and ultimately dismissed ammendment on abortion derided by peers, colleagues and the British public.

But also this week she was humiliated by her own party leader who branded her "frustrated" to the enjoyment of all sides of a clearly innuendo-loving House of Commons. 

Now Dorries has belatedly attacked Osborne for his GQ acceptance speech, perhaps because it displayed the same brand of smutty humour so obviously enjoyed by Cameron.

Writing on her own blog today, Dorries proposed replacing Osborne: 

"With the arrival of the 2010 intake, the Conservative backbenches are full of incredibly smart and able young men who would make an excellent job of being Chancellor... They may also bring some much needed class and statesmanship to the role. I just hope no one else was watching and the shame of having such an immature and tacky Chancellor, is all ours."

Shortest brainstorm ever...?

Lads mag Nuts has apparently taken a long hard look at itself ahead of a relaunch on Friday. And after careful consideration and much deliberation it has hit upon a formula of naked girls, naked girls and more naked girls (with some jokes about naked girls and a few reviews of 'boys toys', such as cars and gadgets thrown in for good measure).

The Guardian reports that publisher IPC undertook "extensive market research to see if young men's tastes have changed" before deciding to "stick to its tried and trusted formula".

Editor Dominic Smith told the Guardian:

"We found that men have so much more pressure on them these days and it is more important than ever for Nuts to be their escape, to be funny and allow them to get away from their woes for an hour."

Smith may be a man who knows a thing or two about pressure. Last year, sales of Nuts fell nearly 20 per cent and its circulation has halved over the past five years. With IPC reportedly putting a £500,000 budget behind the relaunch, those downward trends need to be halted soon and Smith is clearly hoping his dogged belief that nakeds girls can be the solution to life's problems will be shared by thousands of new and lapsed readers.

New Statesman: The Dad's Army years

The cover of the latest edition of the New Statesman (right) is certainly an eye-catching affair with rampant swastikas marching on a map of Europe.

It's a dark and deeply disturbing image, underpinning some powerful and thought-provoking editorial.

But is it just me, or when coupled with the strapline flagging David Blanchflower's entirely unrelated George Osborne article along the bottom of the page, does the whole thing start to feel a little bit 'Dad's Army'. 

All together now: "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Osborne..."

It's what she would have wanted...right?

If you saw The Express's 'Diana at 50' front page effort last week you'd be forgiven for thinking June had more than used up its creepy Photoshop budget. But you'd have figured without Newsweek in the US, whose own jaw-dropping 'Diana at 50' cover story begins:

"Chilling with the Middletons. Tweeting from Davos. And still the people's princess. If not for that tragic night, what her life might look like now..."

Want to know what Diana's Tweets might look like? Newsweek's got that covered. Look, here's what she might look like when retweeting the Dalai Lama:

Want to know what she'd look like on the red carpet clutching her iPhone 4? Course you do. Luckily, Newsweek's got that covered too:

Want to go be sick now? Go on, you've earned it.

(Hat tip Ben Cotterill)

Great magazine cover fail

There's a great front cover typo from Tails magazine (no, I hadn't either) doing the rounds on Twitter (courtesy of Lee Unkrich):

 
But as flawed magazine covers go, does it trump the reigning champion, the April 2005 edition of Parents magazine... (clue, it's the masthead)

 

Top 10 posts from the past month

1. Daily Mail: 'Penguins will make kids gay'

2. This headline is just wrong...

3. Melanie Phillips' Quiz of the Day

4. Another triumph for Fox News

5. The media's fickle relationship with "innocent until proven guilty"

6. When using Google Images attacks

7. Sky Sports duo spark sexism row

8. When is a "surge" not a surge?

9. This one time... at St Barts

10. What a Vader make a living...



Speechless...

This from the Twitter feed of trashy 'true life' magazine That's Life:

 
 
  
 

Sounds like that's being sensitively handled then.

 

 

Top 10 Media Blog posts of 2010

1. BBC calls its own Facebook fans "saddos"

2. Ooops! The Daily Mail falls victim to spoof Steve Jobs iPhone recall Tweet

3. Gazza and Moat: The radio interview

4. ITV News slams Nigella Lawson as unattractive

5. A "first class" performance by Cameron and ITV

6. The Daily Mail song

7. Boston Globe shamed by Hillsborough slur

8. And The Media Hero of 2010 is...

9. Rain with a chance of obscene gestures: Weatherman gives anchor the finger

10. Sun shakes its fist at 'posh wank' scandal

Name the Media Hero & Villain of 2010

It's been another turbulent 12 months in the media and for the second year running The Media Blog is calling for nominations for your Media Hero and Villain Of The Year. It could be an individual, an organisation or a publication or broadcaster.

Just drop us an email, or post a comment below with your suggestions and a brief line on why they deserve either award (unless it's screamingly obvious). We will then create a shortlist and throw it open to a public vote in time to announce the winners before the end of the year.

In last year's awards the Hero crown was won by The Telegraph for its relentless exposure of abuses of Commons expenses, while the Villain of the year was Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir for her poisonous piece about the death of pop star Stephen Gately. Big shoes to fill.

X-Factor, 'Rocky' Robinson, 'Proud of the BBC' ...top 10 Media Blog posts this week

1. The X Factor effect on iTunes

2. Nick Robinson: Come and have a go if you think your placard's enough

3. Bit of a long shot... 

4. Mitch Benn: Proud Of The BBC

5. Andrew Marr dislikes bloggers... and bald, spotty, single, ugly people

6. If the CAPS fit?

7. ...though they do say so themselves

8. Sugar adds spice to Twitter

9. Censor sensibility: She said WHAT!?

10. Kelly Brook naked? There's NOT an app for that*

(*We suspect the popularity of certain search terms is responsible for a lot of persistent Google traffic to this particular post from the archives.)

A right Cox up

It seems the Guardian's fondness for chart-topper turned media-friendly physicist Dr Brian Cox isn't to everybody's taste.

This (reproduced in its entirety) from the letters page of the paper's Weekend magazine after Cox graced its pages a fortnight ago:

"Do you sponsor Brian Cox or something? He's not even the most famous person called Brian Cox."

Indeed he isn't.

This blogger is reminded of a presentation he was set to give on the media's recently renewed fascination with science - from the Large Hadron Collider to Cox himself - where a designer producing the slides had seen fit to illustrate one with Brian Cox, the 64-year-old actor who counts The Bourne Identity and Troy among his many on-screen credits.

It'll be all Whites on the night?

The Times Playlist magazine has certainly tried to do its bit to promote new Alan Davies vehicle Whites, which screens on BBC Two this week, though it could have been a little more joined-up in its (almost) universal praise...

Page 3 (contents):

"In Whites, the excellent new BBC Two comedy starting on Tuesday, Alan Davies plays a talented...head chef. Page 40."

Excellent, no less. So onto page 40 for the review:

"Whites is enormous fun...because the characters are so strong, the humour emerges naturally and it promises to be a comic highlight of the weeks to come."

Enormous fun. Now leafing back through the pages you find this on page 26's 'Must See TV':

"Alan Davies is on fine form in this new comedy series..."

All fine and good. But there's still one more mention on page 5, in the 'Instant Expert' column where we're told what we should think about things this week (should we be people of a misanthropic disposition... which let's face it, most of us are):

"Whites... The latest in a steady line of British, kitchen-based light entertainment that spans Chef!, Pie In The Sky and, arguably Dinnerladies. It's like someone has actually commissioned this with UKTV Gold in mind."

Don't think those are compliments.

Kelly Brook naked? There's NOT an app for that

Pictures of Kelly Brook ("The UK's Hottest Export"... apparently) disrobed for Playboy have been doing the rounds on the internet this week.

Anybody wanting to catch an eyeful of Kelly Brook naked has easily been able to do so on sites such as Holy Moly, after pictures from the September edition of Playboy made it onto the web.

Despite the publicity the pics have received you might imagine this is bad news for sales of the magazine.

But perhaps not as bad as the impact on downloads of Playboy's iPhone app, following an announcement that there will be no nudity on the app. This is in order to conform with Apple's strict content guidelines.

Playboy

Fair play to Apple - their phone, their rules - but surely a Playboy app is either a Playboy app - with all that entails - or it's not.

Perhaps Playboy staff have heard it so many times from their own customers that they've actually started believing people really do "buy it for the articles".

Top 10 Media Blog posts of the past week

1. Sun shakes its fist at 'posh wank' scandal

2. Sexist! Racist! Non-existent Foreign Office ban on middle-class white males

3. Emmerdale 'sorry' about jam rags and pile cream

4. Let's not forget who first cracked 'Brokeback' gag

5. Daily Star: "FURY" erupts over made-up story

6. Shock findings: Men don't fancy ring-tailed lemurs

7. Is there anything good on television tonight Mr Desmond?

8. Is Jacqui Smith the right person for the BBC Trust?

9. Photojournalism isn't dead... it just smells funny?

10. Daily Mail's moral compass not for turning?