Lads mags capture US market

British lads’ magazines captured five million US readers in the Past year, sparking a flurry of copy-cat American publications, it emerged today.

Analysts believe the US versions of Maxim and FHM are now poised to overtake traditional American big sellers like Playboy and Sports Illustrated because they have more appeal with younger male readers.

The British invasion has forced a major rethink by US publishers who initially shunned the format.

The publishers of Time are now investigating setting up a lads’ magazine, while the editor-in-chief of FHM was recently hired as the boss of cult US music magazine Rolling Stone.

Ed Needham’s appointment signals the end of Rolling Stone’s history as a publisher of epic narratives and literary journalism in favour of increased fashion coverage and shorter, snappier articles.

Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc, said US publishers underestimated the impact lads’ magazines would have in America.

‘‘I think that for a long time, the conventional wisdom was that Time Inc. would never do a magazine like Maxim because we didn’t think the advertising would be there,’’ he told the New York Times.

"There was just a perception that young men didn’t read and didn’t spend money, and it turns out that they do both."

Maxim was an instant hit when it was launched in the US in 1997. Stuff, which was published in America soon afterwards, proved even more successful.

The US version of FHM has become the fastest growing magazine in the US in the last six months pushing sales of the British magazines to over five million.

Clare McHugh, a former editor of Maxim, told the Times: ‘‘I think it is one of the great mysteries of our time why American publishers didn’t do this first.’’