‘No surprise’ over axing of Maxim in print

Dennis Publishing’s decision to axe the print version of lads’ monthly Maxim has been met with little surprise by rivals and buyers.

A spokesperson for IPC, which publishes lads’ weekly Nuts and monthly Loaded, says: “In the current economic climate, weak brands like Maxim will suffer and this news comes as no surprise. The men’s market as a whole sells nearly 10 million more magazines annually than it did before Nuts was launched in 2004, and the strongest brands with great content across all platforms are what consumers and advertisers want.”

IPC remains confident its brands can survive in print form.

Mindshare press director Vanessa Clifton expects to see more casualties across mainstream consumer magazines. “Advertiser budgets are squeezed so they want to focus on the leading titles, and are subsequently spending with one or two titles where previously they would go for three or four,” she says.

Maxim saw the steepest decline in the lads’ mags sector, which has been softening since its heyday in the Nineties, and lost almost half its circulation in the latest audit bureau of circulations (ABCs) year-on-year figures, dropping to 45,951. Dennis will now focus on maintaining the brand online.

Rival monthly magazines FHM, from Bauer Media, and Loaded both saw double-digit falls in the latest ABCs, losing 13.5% year-on-year to 272,545 and 21.7% year-on-year to 90,071 respectively.

Maxim’s June issue will be the last UK print edition, although the US version will still be imported by Dennis. The publisher holds exclusive rights to the Maxim UK site, which launched in 1999 and claims 500,000 unique users and 260,000 subscribers to its weekly email newsletter.

The latest closure follows Bauer Media axing its 22-year-old men’s glossy Arena last month.

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