No Nudes But A Boom In Busts

The Sunday Age

Sunday August 27, 2006

JOHN ELDER

THE old-fashioned barbershop magazine is making a comeback with the blue jokes, bosoms, drongo trivia and more bosoms. Or as Zoo Weekly bills itself "sex, sport and stupidity".

Zoo, a newcomer to the struggling lads market, has surprised publishing pundits by posting 85,000 sales in its first ABC audit - immediately outselling the much ruder and one-time very successful Picture and People magazines.

Where Picture and People are pants-down publications - full frontal nudity mags - Zoo is nipple-free.

Says editor Paul Merrill: "It's really important that people can read Zoo on the bus or in front of their mum. And all the research shows that blokes can cope without nipples."

So far the Australian edition has surpassed all sales targets. "We're supposed to be selling around 60,000 by now . . . but we've done better than that from the start."

Twenty years ago, a more modest version of People magazine was selling 265,000 copies - and was the fourth-biggest-selling weekly magazine in the country. Then editor David Naylor - now editorial director, men's titles, at FPC magazines - says that 30 per cent of People's audience was women. "They liked doing the giant crossword on the train, and the stories were fun," says Naylor. "We had a few nipples but it was all very wholesome and non-threatening."

But the golden era ended and People was bought by ACP in late 1987 and, despite Naylor's protests, immediately stuffed with porn ads. "The women readers fell away just as quickly," he says.

At its height People ran stories such as "I was raised by a pig." Zoo's current issue features: "A polar bear ate my head." The crucial difference being: the pig's nipples went on show, while the polar bear's remain discreetly covered.

LAD MAGS at a glance

? Zoo Weekly No nipples, helpful hints for pub talk, 85,262 (initial audit)

? People Totally nude, many celebrity bosoms, 59,083 (down 206,000 from its high point in 1986)

? Picture Totally nude, many silly words for genitals, 79,241 (circulation cut in half in the last 10 years)