Get your kit on

When PETER HOWARTH (right) dumped breasts from the cover of Esquire, he lost 30,000 sales. But he claims he has no regrets

IREAD last week's analysis of the latest ABC figures with a degree of bemusement. It seemed the journalists writing about the men's magazine sector were surprised to find Esquire, the magazine I edit, had lost 30,000 readers.

Pundits from the competition were wheeled out to comment, my favourite being Peter Stuart, publishing director of GQ, who accused us of being "careless", as though we'd left the readers on the bus.

They should have known this would happen. I did, and always said so. My decision at the beginning of the year to remove the bikini- and lingerie-clad babes from the cover and replace them with portraits of celebrities, including (yikes) men, was bound to lose us news-stand sales. In fact, a few months ago, I even went public with the figures in the press, just to be transparent about the strategy. So I was genuinely surprised to read last week that the figures were considered news.

But I think I know why. In the men's magazine market, the circulation of a title has historically been the only measure of its success. This is not true for the women's titles, where there are a number of magazines (Vogue, Harpers & Queen) which have relatively small circulations but prestigious names and high advertising revenue.

On the men's shelves, things have been very different. Ever since the meteoric rise of Loaded and FHM, every men's magazine has dipped into the same box of tricks in the hope of driving sales up. Principally, this has manifested itself on the covers, where the likes of Caprice have disported themselves in their birthday suits, or little more.

And so it was at Esquire. And yet there was a problem. This great title, which had championed the work of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer in its illustrious past, was surrendering its point of difference, its brand values.

By making sex its unique selling point, like all the other men's mags, it was, paradoxically, becoming anything but unique.

So I decided it would be far better in the long term to buck the trend and make the magazine really different from the pack of lads' mags. I felt there was room for a broadsheet approach in this market of tabloids.

Now please don't misunderstand me. I do want to sell magazines, and I know how. To date I have edited two - Arena and Esquire - and both titles have enjoyed their highest sales under me. So this was a calculated and conscious decision, not some whim. I looked to the women's market for inspiration. We would adopt the Vogue and Harpers business model. We would go for a more sophisticated reader. This would necessitate a smaller but more focused circulation (Vogue is currently number 15 in the charts of women's lifestyle/fashion magazines). However, we would make more money through selling ads to those advertisers increasingly disillusioned by the downmarket thrust of the men's titles.

So I followed a completely naked Wonderbra girl on the cover with a black and white David Bailey portrait of Johnny Depp in January - and, you guessed it, 30,000 teenagers stopped reading. They stayed away when, later, George Clooney and David Beckham beckoned. And because our new cover style concentrated on headshots, even beautiful women didn't woo them back - it seems if you take away the cleavage, you take away the casual purchase, too.

But there were benefits. The sales were constant, meaning that people were buying the magazine because of the brand and not because of who was on the cover that month or which freebie they were being offered. Our readership changed - the ABC1 profile increased dramatically from 65 per cent to 80 per cent, making us the most upmarket men's title by far (significantly, our DE profile declined, making us the least downmarket too). The advertising started to roll in, both from existing supporters (Armani quadrupled, Prada trebled) and from new recruits (Boss, Jaguar, Burberry). Many advertisers who'd abandoned us in the bikini years also returned.

We were short-listed for a clutch of awards and were sought out by high-profile contributors: Martin Amis wanted to be published by us, photojournalist Tom Stoddard wanted to shoot for us; and over in Hollywood, Cameron Diaz chose us over a rival, while Brad Pitt asked to be on the cover and gave us his only European interview for the release of Snatch.

Not so good was the fact that I was portrayed by some of the press as being on some strange moral crusade to produce "no nudes Esquire". One writer even asserted I'd taken "a vow of chastity". A man can endure most things, but being called a prude is not one of them. So let's get this straight: I didn't ever say that sex would be banned from the magazine, merely that it would not be presented as the main selling point. Anyone who's read the magazine over the past few months will know this. And as for vows of chastity, give me a break.

So was it a good idea? Well, one interesting comment last week came from Mike Soutar, former editor of FHM and now head of IPC's raft of men's titles.

He said that the Holy Grail of men's publishing was the magazine for the post-lad audience.

Interestingly enough, I bumped into Mike in New York at the beginning of the year and told him of my plans. He said he thought it was clearly the right thing to do as somebody had to break with the formula and shift upmarket.

In the end, I think this is the simple truth - somebody had to evolve the sector from its focus on one type of reader. Somebody had to take the lead: only then could we say we've really got a developing men's magazine market.

That's what I'm doing with Esquire, and given that, the current sales are just what I'd expect.

Circulation: Top seller - 715,756 (+2.1 per cent) Cover line: Marvel at my boom-stick!

Inside: Lesbian Workshop (No 15) "For men who should know Betty's hotpot" Circulation: 350,040 (-8.9 per cent) Cover line: Britain's sexiest [soap] stars strip Inside: Most wanted - Lola Corwin "Sex, sport, ladies, clothes, gadgets, beer, skittles" Circulation: 326,214 (+5.2 per cent) Cover line: Dannii Minogue sweats up Inside: Who's that girl in the Lynx ad?

Circulation: 138,177 (-4.8 per cent) Cover line: Gisele!

The world's most wanted woman Inside: William Hague - I drank 14 pints a day "The sharper read for men" Circulation: 70,435 (-29.8 per cent) Cover line: Brad Pitt, Diamond Geezer Inside: "What really went on at Euro 2000" "The original magazine for men" Circulation: 47,141 (+0.8 per cent) Cover line: Drea De Matteo, The Sopranos sex bomb Inside: Lap-Dance Wars

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