With awards show across the board – Oscars, Emmys, even the VMAs – watching their ratings drop like Anna Wintour at a U.S. Open match year after year, there's something to be said for the star power that, ahem, magazine award soirees attract.

Granted, we're just repeating the "subtle" notion handed down by The Independent, but if a GQ party can fill the entire FOB for Us Weekly, Star and In Touch, these events are probably worth paying attention to.

Editors will tell you they put this shindigs together to honor distinguished talent and blah blah blah, but it's all about exposure — and getting Jamie Foxx to pose in front of your magazine's logo backdrop.

Editors speak of a complicated exercise in branding, a crucial part of the two-way relationship that magazines, as style arbiters, must develop with their cover stars. Asked to explain the purpose of her annual bash, Glamour's editor, Jo Elvin, talks about building "celebrity authority".

"Although Glamour isn't primarily a celebrity magazine, we have a lot of celebrity authority, and the awards help build on that," she says. "It's a huge event for us, important for the coverage it gets, and the doors it opens in terms of celebrity access." Celebs court the exposure of appearing in an "awards special" issue of a magazine. Editors need them on board, because without famous faces, their party's an expensive disaster.

Which, needless to say, is usually why we attend crash them.

But if any of these award shows hit the airwaves (and hopefully replace the Big in '05 show) like a real awards show, we'd opt not for an Esquire best-dressed event — but the Ellies.

Nothing would please us more than to see Ariel Foxman gallop up to the stage while Jay Fielden looks on, feeling glum and waiting for his own moment to shine.