Gay Regionals Lead Growth in Publishing

Until just a few years ago, Los Angeles had three local gay publications that had been around since the late 1970s. Now there are 10. Chicago, which had three, now also has 10.

With advertisers boosting spending to reach gay consumers, the regional gay print media have become the biggest growth sector in publishing, according to New York advertising agency Mulryan Nash.

Ad pages for weeklies and biweeklies that are generally distributed free in gay bars, bookstores and restaurants swelled 20% in 1998 and 35% the year before. The only other category with double-digit growth in 1998 was black-targeted publications, at 18%. The rest of the publishing industry has seen, at best, single-digit growth, according to Mulryan Nash.

Growth in gay publications extends beyond large urban centers. Burlington, Vt., a college town with a population of 44,000, has its own gay publication, Out in the Mountains. Salt Lake City has the Pillar.

But the scenario for gay-targeted media hasn’t played to expectations. Predictions were that the rockets would blast for such national gay magazines as Out as diminishing social biases brought gay and lesbian characters to prime-time television.

Out’s monthly circulation, however, is expected to fall to 118,000 this year, down from 134,000 in 1997. The circulation of Genre, a competing national monthly, has remained flat at 53,000 since 1997.

Los Angeles-based Advocate, the oldest national gay publication, expects to show 12% circulation growth this year to 88,500, from 79,000 in 1998.

The residual closetedness of middle-American gays is seen as a factor working against the national magazines. “Gay men and women still do not want to be on subscriber lists, and still are not ready to pick up Out or another gay mag at a Barnes & Noble,” said Todd Evans, whose New Jersey-based Rivendell Marketing represents regional gay and lesbian publications.

But the larger impetus behind growth of the regionals is the same localization and niche-targeting that is reshaping all media.

“Local news has always been what’s driven media and therefore localization of publishing in the community. And gays are all about community,” explained William Waybourn, whose Washington-based Window Communications owns publications in Atlanta, Houston and New Orleans. “Anything that deals on a local level is drawing great interest.”

Regionals have the edge because they’re service-oriented. While national magazines are generalists, local publications are in the same mold--and growth curve--as Friday entertainment sections in major urban dailies, offering a pragmatic lineup of events, venues, restaurants and bars.

“By and large, gays and lesbians, like the population at large, need to know what’s going on in their local community Friday night, and the best place for the gay community are the local community publications,” Evans said.

Regionals also serve as surrogate Yellow Pages for services such as doctors, lawyers, plumbers, insurance sellers and car dealerships. And local advertisers are driving ad pages.

Frontiers, with a weekly circulation in Southern California of 50,000, is emblematic. Associate Publisher David Gardner said ad pages have increased by 80% over four years, to 180 pages an issue from 100. He attributed the growth not only to an increase in national advertising but to a surge in ads from local gay and lesbian businesses.

“The bread and butter of the local press has been the local advertiser,” Gardner said.

And if quality merits, a local can spin off a national edition, as in the case of the Manhattan-based MetroSource. The roughly 240-page glossy, started in 1989, launched a national, 122-page edition in September, essentially axing the half of the book that contained a local classified directory.

But the strength of the regionals is that they laser-beam target markets. The 10 Los Angeles publications are highly niched. “There’s Hispanic, African American, leather, bar-oriented, a circuit party publication, two lesbian,” said Evans, who finds the segmentation “fascinating. It’s unusual for that many even in such a big market. But I think that’s the trend.”

The lopsided ratio of publications directed to gay men to those directed to lesbians is another question mark. Though most define themselves under the inclusive “gay and lesbian” rubric, the reality is male in both content and readership. Lesbian-only magazines have not kept pace. According to a study by Mulryan Nash, 27% of the ads in gay publications aim specifically at lesbians.

Stereotypes and income play a role. “There’s the image of lesbians as wearing jeans and no makeup or interest in fashion, versus gay men, who are perceived as clotheshorses,” said advertising agency chief David Mulryan. “And like the overall population, gay women have lower income than gay men.”

Lesbians are also perceived as harder to target than gay men. “They tend not to be as concentrated geographically as gay men, who can be pinpointed in well-known areas such as West Hollywood, the Castro area of San Francisco, Chelsea in New York,” Mulryan added.

And lesbians are not a target market for HIV medications, which are among the principal advertisers in the gay press. But the overall growth of regionals, with readership lines breaking down to about 70% men, 30% women, shows no signs of slowing.

“Two years ago, there wasn’t a local publication with over 50,000 circulation. Now there are 10,” Evans said. “By the end of the year 2000, I expect 15, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 20.”