Inside Sport canned it, Alpha flirted with it, Ralph and FHM continue to embrace it. Should men’s magazines keep the bikini-clad cover girl?
Some of the country’s biggest publishers are at loggerheads over whether to keep bikini-clad girls on the cover of their magazines. With the latest Roy Morgan readership numbers showing readers of monthly men’s magazines continuing to flee the category, the decision to either embrace or replace the cover girl is proving to be a difficult one.
Over the past 12 months, this has been made even more confusing by the arrival of the weekly Zoo magazine, which since launching, has dominated readership and circulation.
Horwitz’s decision to strip bikini-clad girls from the cover of its monthly Inside Sport magazine, after more than 16 years, represents a major swing away from the longstanding trend.
But, earlier this year, Alpha, which when launching declared the magazine would be a “sleaze-free zone”, finally bit the bullet and widened its pictorial brief to include female sports starts . . . in bikinis, of course. But while Alpha’s image was tame when compared to the June issues of Ralph and FHM, which both feature UK model Keeley Hazell in all her 32DD glory, it was a significant about-face.
While Horwitz’s decision may just be a last ditch effort to salvage the once dominant, but now floundering, sports magazine, all is not lost. The magazine will continue to offer its red-blooded readers a substantial fix of good-looking gals, both online and in the magazine. Pictorials will now feature more heavily online, with downloadable podcasts available, all on top of a new tailor-made annual swimsuit edition.
But does a good looking cover girl really help drive sales, or are men these days embarrassed about buying such a magazine from the supermarket shelves?
Inside Sport’s editor Graem Sims says today’s male reader is self-conscious about the blokey image sent out by a magazine with a bikini girl on the cover. And, while not everyone would agree with this, including myself, he may just have a point.
Loyal readers of these magazines, Inside Sport included, are grown up, probably married, have kids, and see little value in these images. Hence the reason most of these women will end up on Inside Sport’s website.
“For us it’s been an evolution, and we certainly don’t want to be accused of discriminating against good looking women” Sims says.
He adds that, ultimately, Inside Sport is a mag for all sports fans and, as so, the babes had to go.
But scantily clad women and men’s magazines have been around for a long time and, no doubt, big online initiatives and brand extensions such as the upcoming Ralph TV will see this trend continue.
Matthew Eaton, media editor.
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