Men And Freshmen Magazines To Go Quarterly, Integrate Subscriptions & Content Into Unzipped Magazine
"Did Regents Did Regent's Unzipped Media Just Close Porn Rags Men and Freshmen?" That's the question Queerty asked citing a source with knowledge of the company. "Men and Freshmen are no longer," says Queerty, "and about half of Unzipped Media's staff was let go on Friday as the publisher shutters two-thirds of its porn roster."
Queerty conjectures that since porn's all but moved online, it'd make sense for Regent Media to keep Unzipped afloat and cut their two other porn mags loose (especially since Unzipped gets most of the press and the blog action). But Unzipped Media Group Publisher Dustin Tyner told XBIZ that Freshmen and Men aren't going away. Freshmen and Men subscribers will get Unzipped monthly now, Unzipped will up it's page count, and Freshmen and Men will release quarterly special editions (like the content will be folded into Unzipped magazine:
"This isn't a matter of the magazines not doing well," Tyner said. "But if you look at the number of pages we currently put out per month, we're producing more than Vanity Fair. So we are taking a long view of the market and adapting the properties in order to keep these brands alive for many years to come. We're pouring all of our resources into Unzipped magazine and our online premium brands. These properties have the most growth potential in our company."
Unzipped Executive Editor Rick Andreoli said, "We'll be increasing Unzipped magazine's page count and retaining many of the most successful elements of Men and Freshmen in those pages. We're also really focused on producing new media content for Unzipped.net."
According to XBIZ, the final monthly editions of Men and Freshmen will carry a November 2009 cover date. Then, starting in December, all current subscriptions will be redirected into Unzipped. Afterwards, Men and Freshmen will release special editions (like the "fetish"-themed Men magazine currently on newstands.
Both magazine have gay iconic status. Freshmen got founded in 1991 and 2009 marks Men's 25th anniversary.
3
QC Asians
Reader Comments
Your 2¢, in chronological order — add your comment below.
Freshman was the first magazine I purchased, was to young to buy it and totally flirted with the guy at the gay book store to buy it. I have the entire collection of both mags, and to be honest am not a fan of the newer unzipped or [2].
Things change oh well :-)
I agree with Ariel. I Love Freshmen & Men and subscribe to both. I have just about every issue of Freshmen since it started in 1992. I subscribe to both magazines and have over a year and a half left in both subscriptions.
What will happen to those of us that subscribe to both?? Will we recieve two issues of Unzipped?? I think I might need my money back. Im not at all a fan of Unzipped. I guess we'll see what happens.
I believe internet porn has sounded the death knell of porn magazines. I haven't purchased one in years and gay and straight adult magazines are dropping like flies from the bookshelves in my city.