The Advocate and Out, two of the bigger names in LGBT magazine culture, have been swooped away from PlanetOut to the multi-platformed, queer-focused Regent Media.
Regent now owns those publications as well as The Out Traveler, HIV Plus, Alyson Books, and the Gaywired Media triumvirate (Gaywired, Shewired, and Gaysports). The company also produced Gods and Monsters and owns here! Networks, "America’s premium gay and lesbian television network." Regent owners Stephen Jarchow and Paul Colichman are the Donald Trumps of gay industry — with better hair and without the sleeping wit hot female models thing.
First order of business? Setting up video podcasting so The Advocate can go cover the DNC.
Press release after the jump:
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Tom Ford is featured in this month’s Out Magazine and reveals his inner perfectionist:
If I lived in a one-room hut, every piece of grass that made the roof would be lined up in the right way.
Fittingly, he takes the same approach to his remaining strands of hair.
Out indulges Tom Ford's model fantasy, and gives him a photo spread.
After the jump, Tom Ford’s butt (and tan lines).
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PlanetOut Inc. has the world's richest person to thank for bailing it out from its financial troubles. None other than Bill Gates, through his Cascade Investment, is among the investors who sunk $26 million to save the flailing gay media conglomerate, which publishes magazines Out and The Advocate, porn titles Freshmen and Unzipped, and operates RSVP Vacations and Gay.com, publisher Alyson Books, and sells raunchy DVDs.
It's only a matter of time before searches for "gay porn" on MSN.com turn up PlanetOut's MenMachine.com.
We didn't actually think Out and The Advocate were at risk of folding — but spun off as an independent company? The possibility crossed our minds.
But never mind with all that! Their cash-strapped parent, PlanetOut Inc., just announced it secured $26.2 million in some type of financial arrangement that might be classified as, um, a sale? Queerty tries to suss things out; we remain confused. But alas, Out's Aaron Hicklin will still have his monthly underwear model budget. Rejoice!
Those gay magazines Out and The Advocate are not in trouble of imploding, despite reports! In addition to The Advocate undergoing some cosmetic changes to save itself, there's hope on the horizon. (Well, let's put "hope" in quotes.)
In between pointing its feet toward Jesus, Queerty relays this statement of clarity from PlanetOut, which owns LPI Media, publisher of those rags.
PlanetOut Inc.’s first major hurdle in its uphill climb toward fiscal solvency is just days away. After posting a $6.9 million loss the first quarter of this year, the company’s lender set June 30 as the date by which it must raise at least $7 million—with another $8 million to come by August 31.
That's June 30, as in tomorrow (when our attention will be on Janice Min, of course). It's going to be mildly amusing when they don't reach those cash infusion goals, especially since the gays are just so affluent these days.
Perhaps you've heard: LPI Media, the publishing division of PlanetOut Partners that spits out Out and The Advocate, is in dire straits. Money ain't flowin', and like a Friday night trick, there are bills to pay. So what to do?
Make aesthetic changes to hide the infrastructure tumble!
The Advocate "will roll out a more vivid, sophisticated look under the direction of Luke Hayman, who recently redesigned Time and New York. It will feature a modern sans-serif logo and typeface, uncoated cover stock and bright, color-coded departments."
It's just like the gays to blame things on appearances, rather than personality or relevance, isn't it?
Not to cause too much of a stir in the fairyland of gay-dom, but we hear the current issue of Aaron Hicklin's Out magazine is ruffling more than the loins of its editor. It being June and all, some inside the industry expected a "pride" issue, a la corporate cousin The Advocate, which pasted T.R. Knight on its cover (after much lobbying on their part). Instead, readers are looking at photos of Chad White riding around on a horse without very many clothes on. Not that we're going to raise a stink about it — Chad's ass looks like two giant cantaloupes, and that's certainly worth celebrating as much as drag queens with mardi gras beads.
Whenever we get the chance to roll in the hay with our gay cuz Queerty, we take it. And thanks to the misfortunes of PlanetOut Inc. – owner of Gay.com, Out, The Advocate, and RSVP Vacations – we're getting laaaaaaid! As Queerty was among the first to report, PlanetOut's outlook hasn't been so rosy. Sinking share price. Execs selling off stock. Cash strapped operations.
Now Queerty brings word that the situation is even more dire. Reports in the SF Gate claim that without a cash infusion, PlanetOut will run out of dolla dolla bills by the end of the year. It's not just hard out there for a pimp; it's hard out there for a gay media conglomerate who thought its well-lubed infrastructure would help cut costs and boost profit.
Meanwhile, during a recent interview with Out editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin, we were assured that the future of his magazine was safe. He wouldn't comment on the LGBT ticker symbol's troubles, but his glossy rag is, supposedly, treading water just fine.
You know, the glossy rag that's loaded with ads for its parent company's RSVP Vacations — the same RSVP Vacations that's being blamed for much of PlanetOut's woes. Not that all the guys who used to cruise Gay.com are now on MySpace, Facebook, and Dlist or anything.
"Does a scattershot of gay Timesmen a mafia make?" WWD asks, in response to Out magazine's Power 50 list, which groups together a bunch of NYT homos and ranked the so-called "Times mafia" at a collective number seven.
'Maybe!' concludes WWD, and, frankly, we're not quite sure what to think. After all, the men in question (restaurant critic Frank Bruni and theater critic Ben Brantley, among others) are certainly powerful in a "wordsmith" sort of way, but they're not exactly the most physically intimidating bunch.
And while some NYT mobsters are capable of inciting fear amongst aging cabaret singers and overly hyped pastry chefs we actually think we could take most of them in a battle of fisticuffs. (Except for maybe "Godfather" Richard Berke. He's scary!)
Still, like any organized crime ring, the Times' mafia cringes at the thought of being lumped together into one giant, homosexual conglomerate. And these streetwise reporters are too smart to explicitly admit that they're already mounting a counterattack.
"What are we going to do?" wondered Elliot. "Beat them with the Sunday Times?"
"It's just nomenclature," said Brantley dismissively. "I didn't even know some of those men were gay." Asked if he had since gotten in touch with his fellow mafia members, Brantley said: "Oh, God no."
Hear that? It's called solidarity, brother!
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You know the name Jeffrey Epstein as the billionaire financier whose teenage South Beach massages got him into a little trouble with the law. But that's not the only Jeffrey Epstein whose news needs your radar! This other J.E. is the West Coast editor at Out magazine.
Well, at least he is until tomorrow.
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• The Coop, Jodie Foster "Out-ed." Entire world feigns surprise.
• NYT's public editor Byron Calame wins the Bart Richards Award for royally screwing over Bill Keller and Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
• New, super-secret Portfolio cover is…a disappointing NYC skyline. Yawn.
• One of the Google employee's has a 3-foot python who can't be contained! Computer programmers, so hot right now.
• Business Week wonders how Sam Zell will revamp the Tribune with so much debt. Incredibly, Sam Zell just had the exact same thought.
• And yet, inexplicably, Broad and Burkle still want in.
Since another state isn't legalizing same-sex marriages, our quota on GLBT stories requires an update on outgoing Out publisher Joe Landry. Stolen from Out by BlackBook (only fair, since Out stole EIC Aaron Hicklin from BlackBook), Landry is set to leave in March. And while some are glad to see him go, one tattler says insists "Joe was 'fabulous,' to use one of his favorite words. Let's show him a little love."
And by love, we mean the memo to LPI Media staffers announcing Joe's exit, from president Bob Cohen, which includes the following newsworthy nugget:
This week, we will announce the selection of a new creative director for OUT and a design consultant for the redesign of The Advocate. Plus, we have already launched a wide recruiting effort to bring in a new group publisher for our print division. Stay tuned for further developments.
In the biggest staff shakeup since Aaron Hicklin took over Out – the gay magazine with straight people on the cover – exclusive word arrives from fagala cousin Queerty that publisher Joe Landry is out the door. And he's headed for BlackBook. You know, the magazine where Hicklin was just editor.
But from what we understand, his exit was a long time coming.
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If there's a gay blog we're reading, it's Queerty. Namely because we make money with each visit. But sometimes another fagala notices something first-hand, and we'd be remiss if we didn't relay it. Especially when it has to do with gays and media. So here's Fagats, at the Buckler fashion show:
We were seated in the front row, directly across from Aaron Hicklin, the new editor of Out Magazine. At the end of the show, when all the models walked out together, we watched him closely. As each man walked by, instead of looking at the clothes, Aaron's eyes skipped directly from face to package. As the parade of hotties went by, it continued. Face-package. Face-package. Face-package.
Otherwise known as just another day at the office.
The fagalas at Queerty hit Out magazine's Out 100 party at Capitale on Friday night, capturing all the glam you'd expect from the gayest event of the season: Iman, Michael Kors, Anne Hathaway, Claire Danes, Kelis, and the well-cheekboned Aaron Hicklin, editor of the magazine. Yes, we were there too, but only to stuff our face in Kelis' crotch. She volunteered. (To be sure, it didn't hurt that we were among those listed in the Out 100.)
When Out editor Aaron Hicklin personally invited us to his soiree last night at Bubble Lounge, we immediately blocked out our calendar. It's not that we wanted to go to another event with gays, media types, and champagne all shoved together. Rather, we wanted to see if Hicklin would show up at his own event this time. And did he show? Yes he did, cheekbones and all.
Though it can be difficult to have a serious conversation about a magazine when pretty boys have their shirts nearly unbuttoned and Michael Musto is actually standing still, we wanted to know all about Hicklin's process. Because it's all about process, isn't it folks? For Aaron, his process begins like this: "Picking the cover is a chore." You mean, choosing the hottie your newsstand buyers are going to ogle at is the worst part of the job? For Aaron, 'tis. He's more concerned with putting content "between the covers … that you won't find in Details."
Which is a nice segue into something that's been burning a bigger hole in our heads than sophomore year's E trip: Isn't Out just a gay Details, and isn't Details just a straight Out? And, more importantly, have they ever slept with each other?
The recent attention we threw Hicklin's way had to do with his choice for the September cover — the first issue that's entirely his. An early mockup showed Johnny Knoxville with a coverline quite similar to a Genre issue from last year. The actual version now being distributed? Knoxville's still on the cover, sans mimicky coverline. But the real cause for concern among the gays was why Knoxville is even on the cover. Shouldn't a gay mag feature, you know, gay people? No, insists Hicklin, who says his cover choice was based on Knoxville approaching Out directly – we also hear Knoxville has approached HX – that caused Out's staff to swoon. You wouldn't see Brandon Routh's camp reaching out to the homos, now would you?
And how about someone like Lance Bass, whose coming out earned mixed reactions among the homos. "I don't want Lance," Hicklin says. "By November it [his coming out] will be old news. … Is a coming out story [enough reason to be on a cover]?" Well, the more important question is really "Can Lance Bass sell a magazine?," and we tend to think even his Tigerbeat years are over.
So what's next from Hickin? He wasn't exactly spilling his editorial calendar, but if his repeated insistence that he "didn't grow up with images of sexualized men" is any indication, you can expect plenty of repressed libido to be popping up. At least between the covers.
[Photo: Out editor Aaron Hicklin with Jossip's Corynne Steindler.]
Related: All Out Magazine and Aaron Hicklin coverage
We thought we'd do Aaron Hicklin the favor of noting the actual cover of the September issue of Out: It is not the "Here's Johnny" cover we previously reported two weeks ago (read: the blatant fascimile of Genre's Johnny Knoxville cover from 2005), which threatened to knock Hicklin's vision of an avant garde magazine revamp right out of his Kiehl's moisurized hands. Instead, Hicklin chose to go with "Johnny Likes It Rough (And We Mean Ruff)," an enthusiasticly different coverline — but still the same recycled and bland cover subject. Jason Statham, it turns out, was unavailable on such short notice.
Current Issue [Out]
Earlier: Aaron Hicklin Comes Out With a Copycat
Earlier: Clearly, The Gays Love Johnny Knoxville
While a Johnny Knoxville cover does not a copycat make, it's worth noting that Out's Johnny Knoxville September cover, like Genre's July 2005 Knoxville cover, was actually preceded by The Advocate October 2004 Knoxville cover. Not that plastering the 13-24-year-old box office demographic savior on the cover of your magazine means you're immediately on the level of Ann Coulter plagiarism – if that were true, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Glamour, Us Weekly, Cosmo, InStyle, and Elle should all be sitting down for a Matt Lauer interview right about – but in the realm of gay journalism, how many times can we recycle a reality TV star's V-shaped torso? Silly homos, always trying to out-gay each other.
(L to R: Genre's July 2005 issue; Out's September 2006 issue)
New Out editor Aaron Hicklin – known around Jossip Worldwide Headquarters as "that guy who skipped his own magazine's first party on his watch" – was supposedly the successful catch by publisher Joe Landry, who stole Hicklin from BlackBook after an eight month search. But many an insider are already wondering: Where's the payoff?
The "let's be David Bowie gay—not Cher gay" Hicklin isn't exactly proving himself, according to those with direct knowledge of the situation. With the September 2006 issue – the first edition fully under Hicklin's control – he's gone with Out's tradition of choosing straight coverboys who play to the gay audience, throwing Johnny Knoxville on his book. The coverline? "Is Jackass the gayest show on TV?" (Excuse our rather sloppy scan.)
Johnny Knoxville? How innovative, we know. Especially when you look back to July 2005, when competitor Genre magazine put Knoxville on its cover shortly after it launched its own revamped image, flashing its redesign alongside new editor Chris Ciompi and owner Window Media.
Meanwhile, in his March 2006 publisher's letter, Out's Landry wrote "We have many weighty requirements for this extraordinary role," and that "Out will help to uncover this voice—defining gay for a new generation. And for the United States itself." That, or copying the gay generation of last year.
Related: All Aaron Hicklin and Out coverage
Remember Aaron Hicklin? The EIC of Out magazine who puts straight people on his covers and ditches his own magazine parties to hang out at Nick Denton's blog pad? Well, he's getting ready to reveal the new and improved "Bowie gay" Out over the next three issues.
A Lord of the Flies fashion section (little boys in loin cloths?), Johnny Knoxville, and a History Boys spread will grace the "plumper" pages of the mag. (Well, the actual paper will not change in size, it's just that the fashion section will be a bit bigger and "plumper pages" is a fun alliteration. We wouldn't want a Emily Nussbaum sidewalk issue on our hands.)
Oh, and (get this) there will stuff to read it in too!
Said Hicklin: "We're redesigning it to reflect a sophisticated lifestyle magazine that has something in it to be read."
Because even Playboy doesn't get by on eye candy alone.
Out Of Touch [Sara James, WWD]
Editorial Director
