New Service Titles Target Male Teens

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 2000 by Jo Bennett

Publishers try to prove that "general interest" can resonate with this audience.

Rodale recently invited the local high-school wrestling team to its headquarters. But the Emmaus, Pennsylvania-based publisher of health and fitness titles was not interested in studying moves--they wanted advice and feedback on the prototype for MH-18, a bimonthly descendent of Men's Health targeted toward the eighth- to 12th-grade set, scheduled to debut in September. "Nobody's really done a service magazine for guys before," explains editor Jeff Csatari. "We felt it was time."

Indeed, marketers and publishers alike agree that "It's time." According to many estimates, over the next 10 years, the youth population will increase at twice the rate of the overall population. By 2010, experts predict, there will be at least 35 million teenage Americans--the most in the country's history. And according to a recent Roper Starch report, the average 13- to 17-year-old has 51 percent more spending money than a comparable teen in 1995.

Rodale certainly isn't alone in its desire to capture the attention of teen males. For instance, Times Mirror Magazines launched Stance in March, a youth culture title out of its TransWorld Media division. And Joey, a Los Angeles-based quarterly magazine for young gay males, also made its debut that month.

Also vying for a piece of this elusive audience is a host of recent dual-gender entries to the market, such as The New York Times Upfront, launched in partnership with Scholastic Inc., Teen Newsweek, a partnership with Weekly Reader Corp., and Primedia Inc.'s Entertainmenteen. All join Time Inc.'s two-year-old Teen People, which, according to publisher Anne Zehren, has about 20 percent male readership.

However, while publishers and marketers are clearly working harder than ever to woo this group, many observers agree that it won't be an easy task.

"Young men's interests go toward enthusiast books," says Peter Craig, a magazine consultant and administrative partner with Los Angeles-based Bay, Sherman, Craig & Goldstein, LLP. "I'd be interested in seeing any research that says their tastes have become more general-market."

Indeed, while magazines geared toward the general interests of teenage females have been a mainstay of the magazine business for years (YM and Seventeen, for example, are two of only six consumer titles that increased newsstand revenue every year between 1988 and 1998, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations), their male counterparts' interest has not been as easy to capture. The only magazines you're likely to find in a teenage guy's backpack today are sports books or vertical titles, such as those geared toward video game enthusiasts.

Yet many advertisers are clearly eager to give these magazines a chance. The 148-page premier issue of Stance, for instance, had 94 ad pages, including clients such as The Milk Board and Union Bay Sportswear. Some executives at the companies advertising in dual-gender books view the opportunity to market to teen males as a bonus--or, at worst, a gamble. Chanel Inc., for example, a regular Teen People client, has products for both men and women. "The teenage market for us is the future consumer," says Jean Hoehn Zimmerman, executive vice president, fragrance and beauty. "I honestly don't think young males read a lot, but our target isn't so much the young guy as it is the young woman," she explains. "So whatever we get in that dual audience, we're grateful for."

Some publishers admit that aside from the obvious lure of trying to find the magic bullet that will allow them to penetrate this huge group, another motivation for launching within this space is the opportunity to build the next generation of readers for their young men's titles. "These guys have grown up with their dads and uncles reading Men's Health, but it's just not their magazine yet," says Csatari. When testing the magazine's title, based on feedback such as "We're not 'men' yet," he explains, Rodale chose not to spell out the MH name.

TransWorld Media has a tiered strategy across its roster of titles, explains editorial director Fran Richards, and Stance is somewhat of an entry point for several. Across its skateboarding books, he says, reader turnover is about 20 percent each year, but rather than graduating "out," he explains, they move "up" to a title suitable for the next more mature audience. "We feel that what a 17-year-old wants to see in a skiing magazine and what a 28-year-old wants to see are totally different, and they know we can give them exactly what they want."

Guys-Only Titles

Stance Publisher: Times Mirror Magazines

Audience: Teen boys, action culture

Launched: April 2000

Frequency: Bimonthly

Initial Distribution: 100,000

MH-18

Publisher: Rodale

Audience: Boys, 13-18

Launched: September 2000

Frequency: Bimonthly

Circulation: 125,000

Joey

Publisher: Joey Magazine, LLC

Audience: Gay high-school and college males

Launched: March 2000

Frequency: Quarterly

Circulation: 20,000

Duel-Gender Titles

The New York Times Upfront