Is there a market where the boys are? - demographic aspects of the magazine publishing industry

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 15, 1993 by Lorne Manly

The demographics are enough to make any publisher salivate. The cohort of males between 15 and 22 numbers 14.2 million, the population of boys ages 12 to 19 is expected to grow by more than 11 percent in this decade, and nearly eight million young men boast annual disposable income greater than $5,000.

Yet for years, no general-interest magazine targeting male youth has captured their hearts and wallets. The reason for this anomaly is simple, say most magazine executives, media directors and researchers. "I don't see guys putting their money into that kind of magazine--they'd rather buy a bag of Doritos," says Irma Zandl, president of The Zandl Group, a New York-based consultant on the youth market.

A number of new publications, however, are betting that this conventional wisdom can be shattered. Inside Edge, a bimonthly for "happening guys" that covers dating, partying, cars and sports, was started by two Harvard University economics students. It launched in late April. TransWorld Publishers, owners of SKATEboarding and SNOWboarding, launched Warp last year as an alternative sports and music quarterly. And Lang Communications' Dirt, a sibling of Sassy's, started in 1991.

They all face substantial hurdles on both the advertising and editorial fronts. While young women's magazines rely on a triad of fashion, cosmetics and hygiene-product advertising, "what could be the counterpart in the boys' magazine market?" asks Marty Walker, head of Walker Communications, a consultancy based in New York City. "Tobacco and liquor won't touch them, they are nowhere near as fashion conscious, and video games, music and sneakers are not enough to support the titles."

Most important, the concept of a general-interest magazine geared to them conflicts with the psychological makeup of young men. While girls' magazines have "20 stories on how to do your hair and other dos and don'ts related to social situations, these have absolutely no interest to boys," says Zandl.

Aaron Shapiro, Inside Edge's publisher and editorial director, claims his magazine will succeed precisely because it understands that fact of life. "Guys have a lot of the same insecurities that girls do, but they just can't acknowledge them," says Shapiro who, along with his dorm-mate Jonathan Hsu, raised several hundred thousand dollars to launch the magazine. Shapiro expects to break even within three to five issues.

Shapiro estimates that 60 percent of his magazine's readers will be college-age, with the rest in high school. (Advertisers are promised a 50,000 rate base for the first issue and 100,000 for the second.) He hopes the mix will entice the same advertisers attracted to Conde Nast's Details, even though that magazine skews older, and is confident that automotive, consumer electronics, apparel and music advertisers will flock to his book. (The 68-page first issue contained 17 pages of national advertisers.) Charging $2.50 per copy means circulation carries some of the freight as well.

TransWorld's Warp takes a different approach. "Boys identify themselves by the sports they do," says Fran Richards, marketing manager and music editor of TransWorld's three titles. The Oceanside, California-based company mixed in music coverage and released Warp as a "print version of MTV." Targeting males 14 to 21, it writes to the 17-year-old. After three issues, paid readership is 30,000, compared to SKATEboarding's 75,000 and SNOWboarding's 62,000. Richards thinks Warp's circulation could rise to 200,000.

Key to TransWorld's distribution are action sports specialty shops--and the company has traded lists with alternative record labels to get into record stores. "It's tough to get kids to go to the newsstand, but we already have a venue where they hang out," says Richards.

The first two issues each garnered 25 pages of advertising, while the third had 21 pages, mostly from music and apparel companies. Melissa Boag, who places ads for Interscope Records, likes Warp for its alternative music coverage.

But Boag gives Dirt the thumbs down. "It's presenting stuff that teenage boys are not really interested in. There's too much of it and it's too blatant," she says. Advertisers seem to share that assessment, since ad pages range between eight and 17 pages per issue. Dirt's 150,000 copies are polybagged with Sassy and Marvel Comics. Lang executives say the company is committed to its growth, with plans to increase Dirt's quarterly frequency to bimonthly and begin selling subscriptions by early 1994. Although Andrew Crossfield, Dirt's ad director, declines to reveal profits, he says, "We're not losing any money on it."

Cracking the major ad budgets has proved difficult. "A lot of advertisers like the idea of the magazine and know that the marketplace is hot, but say to us that we're too small," says Crossfield. To remedy that, Dirt is negotiating with top vertical books in the skateboarding, music and video-games categories to set up a teen media network that would reach more than 600,000 teens. Dirt would sell a four-page ad insert to be saddle-stitched into each magazine; after its commission for producing the insert, revenues would be split based on the size of the other magazines.