They're here, they're queer, they're on a roll

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management,  June 1, 1995  by Susan Hovey

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What do green vegetables have to do with being gay? Everything and nothing. Since launching in the summer of 1992, Out has published thought-provoking pieces on weighty subjects from AIDS to overzealous Ollie North supporters. But it's a goofy little article about asparagus from issue number one that still sticks with executive editor Sarah Pettit.

It was just some back-of-the-book cooking tips--not exactly the sort of thing to inflame readers. Except that the item included an oh-by-the-way explanation for that certain "smell" associated with eating asparagus. High-minded readers were not amused. Out had crossed the line.

"The asparagus piece brought gales of laughter," Pettit remembers, laughing a little herself during an interview at the magazine's Soho offices in New York City. "But I thought it was really important. To me, that first issue was a sketch, an outline of what a gay magazine could be. It's okay to acknowledge that we experience our lives in a lot of different ways. We go into kitchens and turn on stoves and cook food like everyone else. "

These are the gay nineties indeed for magazines targeting the country's increasingly visible gay and lesbian market. Five years ago, the "category" consisted of The Advocate (the news title founded in 1967), the short-lived challenger Outweek (1989-1991), and a handful of sexually explicit books like Blueboy and On Our Backs. Today, there is a full-fledged cadre of national publications courting--and winning over--maimtream advertisers. There are men's magazines (Genre, Men's Style), women's magazines (Deneuve, Girlfriends), and those that appeal to both The Advocate, 10 Percent). And there are gay business magazines (Next News, Victory!) to document it all.

But the one that has opened the most eyes is Out, a 10-times-a-year lifestyle title often labeled as a gay Vanity Fair. Less overtly political (i. e., controversial) than the biweekly Advocate, more accessible to a larger audience than the guy-focused Genre, the upstart Out has played a major role in raising awareness levels about the purchasing power of an elusive market where fervent brand loyalty is touted more than sheer size. (Some estimates put the U.S. gay population near 20 million; others say it's less than half that.)

"Out has helped accelerate acceptance of this category," says George Sansoucy, co-publisher of New York City-based Next News, a six-month-old, setf-described gay Ad Age. "The battlefront for this movement is not exclusively political. There is a commercial and economic front as well."

As media-savvy as any magazine with 10 times the reach, Out owes its success to a mixture of good timing, relentless self-promotion (the third-anniversary June issue sports the new tagline: "America's best-selling lesbian and gay magazine") and smart use of limited resources.

It is the only gay title to achieve a paid circulation of 100,000-the magazine's ABC-audited ratebase jumps to 120,000 beginning with the July/August issue--and it can boast being the first gay buy for dozens of major marketers, including Apple Computer, Banana Republic, Nike, Kenneth Cole, Calvin Klein, Georgio Armani, Walt Disney Records, Columbia Music, Levi Strauss, Saab and Saturn. Last year, Out posted 674 ad pages, with overall revenues of $3.5 million--double what it earned from six issues in 1993.

Twenty-nine-year-old founder, editor and president Michael Goff says that Out has raised the level of professionalism in the gay press--a notion that makes some category members bristle. "I think that's offensive," says Jeff Yarbrough, editor in chief of The Advocate, based in Los Angeles. Few can complain, though, about the increased exposure coming their way, no matter who gets the most credit.

"It's almost impossible to ignore a magazine like Out, " says Paula Brooks, executive vice president/director of media services at Margeotes, Fertitta, Donaher & Weiss, a New York City-based agency that has placed ads for Stolichnaya Vodka and Bombay Gin in several gay books. "It has good numbers [the average Out reader is 35 years old, with a household income of $68,000; 70 percent are male], its circulation is growing, it has an audit, and it's well written. It's a very safe choice for an advertiser."

And yet, as any small publisher--gay or straight--knows, there's little comfort in being a single-title company in an age of cross-media packaging. Now that Out has established a presence, the challenge is to create a diversified base of products and services that will position Out Publishing, Inc., as a leading authority on the gay and lesbian market.

Other category members are already branching out. The Advocate, with an ABC-audited circulation of 70,000, publishes several erotica titles. (Parent company Liberation Publications won't reveal pages or revenues, but Yarbrough says the operation is making money this year for the first time since owner Sam Watters acquired the title from its creditors in 1992.) L.A.-based Genre, which arrived a year prior to Out and claims a paid circulation of 45,000 (BPA audit pending), just launched Urge, a bimonthly sex title.