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Meera Mohanty

New Delhi, Sept. 10 After fairness creams, it’s now time for men’s lifestyle magazines. Whether it’s Men’s Health, FHM, M, Man or Conde Nast GQ, the male audience is being generously helped to claim their space on the newsstands.

“The Indian man has changed, he’s marrying later, has fewer family responsibilities, greater income with greater propensity to spend… on himself,” says Ms Rasina Uberoi, Vice-President, Media Transasia Thailand. The company has signed a joint venture with the UK-based Dennis Publishing. Dennis Media Transasia India will be launching three new brands under the joint venture. Three more titles are expected outside of the joint venture. It will also be investing in the digital space, with online only magazines, starting with a technology magazine in 6-8 weeks. “Dennis UK is highly digital, 40 per cent of its advertising revenues is from digital space,” says Mr James Tye, Chief Executive, Dennis Publishing. A leading independent publisher, its titles for men include evo, Monkey, Maxim and Men’s Fitness. “We, as a publisher, are not scared of investing in new opportunities and in our brands that exist,” says Mr Tye who was in the Capital on Wednesday. Having spent $50 million on the launch of The Week, (its current affairs and commentary digest) in the US, and $10 million for its Australian launch, it will spend what it takes in India too. Outside of the demographics or scale, it’s the dynamic nature of the Indian market that’s exciting. “We have always taken risks, and the Indian market favours such risks. The regulatory framework is also more open than in many other countries,” says Mr Tye.

Media Transasia already publishes its Maxim here and has brought out five issues of the music magazine Blender. Business has doubled in the last three years. Advertising revenue has grown 32 per cent, says Ms Uberoi.

With a print run of 1,10,000 copies, Maxim is targeted at the 27-28 age group. Despite being the first to hit the stands with Rs 100 price tag, it has also done very well even in tier-two cities, says Ms Uberoi. Dennis’ revenues last year grew by 20 per cent to more than £75 million.

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