Yesterday I was helping judge the submissions of a number of people studying for their Masters in magazines and media. One of them was an idea for a magazine aimed at teenage boys between the ages of 10 and 14. Today I read that the American magazine Jane was closing . In the last eighteen months we've seen the death of Smash Hits, Elle Girl, Cosmo Girl and others. In each case there's a lot of talk about titles no longer having their original spirit.The truth is that the one thing that all the products that teenagers favour have one thing in common. They're not aimed at teenagers.
Twas ever thus. In the eighties, my older sister told me the real demographic of teenage girls' magazines: 14-year-olds read Just 17, 17-year-olds read 19 and 19-year-olds read Cosmo, with everyone happy to go along with the demographic artifice.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a fourteen year old boy, if they had existed, I would have bought zoo & nuts & fhm because they included football, cars, hi-tech gadgets and girls with infeasibly large breasrs
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