Loaded: the

lad’s mag

Media & Collective Identity

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Loaded was that rare type of magazine - it created a genre - lads mags - knocking other men's titles into a niche.

It saw itself as 'the antidote to the snooty fashion-based publications of the time'.

However, IPC failed to invest in the title and take it in to the international arena.

Furthermore, one of the titles it first eclipsed was to bite back, albeit under a new publishing company.

In May 1994, IPC launched Loaded. Its unselfconscious, irreverent style defined a 'laddish' culture that was ground-breaking and was to reverberate around the world.

On television, the same laddish element was seen in BBC programmes such as the sitcom Men Behaving Badly, the sports quiz They Think It's All Over and the irreverent news quiz Have I Got New for You (in which one of the teams was led by Private Eye magazine editor Ian Hislop).

Other TV presenters and stand-up comics were part of the trend that encouraged lads mags, such as Paul Merton and Frank Skinner (who was featured on the cover of issue 6 - 'Nudge, nudge, wink, wink: Frank Skinner's world of smut')

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Editors are, by nature, individualists who tend to react badly to strait jackets. They will use their own language and terminology. In fact, it is their attitude and style that may be the difference between a top titles and an also-ran.

Loaded's founding editor James Brown brought in attitude by the bucketful. His regular editor's letter was entitled 'page three', a reference to the Sun tabloid newspaper, which had become famous for its topless women on that very page.

In the first issue of Loaded, Brown wrote: 'What fresh lunacy is this? Loaded is a new magazine dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of sex, drink, football and less serious matters. Loaded is music, film, relationships, humour, travel, sport, hard news and popular culture. Loaded is clubbing, drinking, eating, playing and eating. Loaded is for the man who believes he can do anything, if only he wasn't hungover.'

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Of course, this is too long for a front cover, so the defining lads mag portrayed itself as 'For men who should know better.'

There were variations on this: 'For men who should know letter' for a July 1995 cover on David Letterman;

and '...snow better' for the January 1995 cover showing Santa being knicked.

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The nature of its success can be seen in the sales figures.

The first issue sold 59,400 copies and Loaded broke the 100,000 sales barrier with its ninth issue.

Its first audited yearly sales figure was 96,000 -

and this rose by 82% to 174,763 for the period Jul-Dec 1995.

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Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/gallery/2010/aug/20/loaded-magazine-covers

www.magforum.com

IPC Media is set to sell Loaded magazine to Vitality, publisher of the gay lifestyle magazine Attitude.Vitality Publishing, which also publishes Women's Fitness, has tabled a bid for the lads' title, which was one of the defining magazines of the 1990s but has suffered big circulation drops in recent years.

Although the Loaded publisher is yet to formally accept the offer, IPC is understood to have informed staff about the bid and begun moves towards a formal consultation with its employees.

Loaded had an average monthly sale of 53,591 in the first half of this year, down 26.3% year on year and 24.8% on the previous six months, according to the latest ABC magazine figures.

Loaded once dominated the men's magazine sector, along with Bauer Media's FHM, but the sector is now led by Natmag Rodale's Men's Health and two free titles, Shortlist and Sport.

Latest News on Loaded

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/Aug/20

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Source: mediaweek.co.uk