Summary
FHM was the men's magazine that sold vastly more copies than any of its competitors but still ended up toast. So, why did its publishers stop printing it while other men's magazines survived?
The BBC Business journalist, Sean Farrington, charts its highs and lows in the company of four of FHM's former editors.
Alongside them is the entrepreneur, Sam White, who has to use her business acumen to reach her own conclusions based upon what she has heard.
Featuring in the show are:
- Eric Musgrave - the original editor of 'For Him Magazine' as it was known when it launched in 1985
- Mike Soutar - the FHM editor who took sales to over half-a-million a month in the late 1990s
- Piers Hernu - FHM's editor-at-large who took to the airwaves to defend lads' mags against accusations of sexism
- Joe Barnes - who edited the magazine for four years until shortly before its print publication ceased
Produced by Jon Douglas, Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
You can email the programme at [email protected]
Feel free to suggest topics which could be covered in future episodes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy. |
| 0:05.1 | My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC. |
| 0:08.7 | It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, |
| 0:13.5 | moments and movements, stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous. |
| 0:19.1 | And the BBC's position, at the heart of British music |
| 0:21.7 | means we can tell those stories like no one else. |
| 0:24.5 | We were, are and always will be right there at the centre of the narrative. |
| 0:28.6 | So whether you want an insightful take on music right now |
| 0:31.3 | or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and infamous moments in music, |
| 0:36.1 | check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.9 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:46.0 | Hello, you're listening to Toast, the series from BBC Radio 4, which examines businesses |
| 0:51.1 | that achieved incredible success only to falter and end up toast. |
| 0:56.5 | I'm the BBC business journalist Sean Farrington in the company, of course, of our resident |
| 1:01.0 | business expert Sam White. Sam doesn't know in advance what we'll be discussing so her reactions |
| 1:07.2 | to today's topic are immediate, authentic and at the end, Sam has to give us her |
| 1:12.6 | professional opinion on why this success story turned sour. Let's get cracking. |
| 1:20.4 | Right, Sam, interesting one, this one, I'll tell you, in the late 1990s, were you buying |
| 1:26.7 | magazines at all? |
| 1:28.5 | I was absolutely a magazine buyer. |
| 1:31.2 | I still like a magazine. |
| 1:32.6 | I don't think that they should have gone as out of fashion as they have. |
... |
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