Loaded

Editor-in-Chief	Ian Edmondson
Categories	Men's magazines
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Blue Publishing Ltd
First issue	1994
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Website	www.loaded.co.uk
ISSN	1353-3479

Loaded, first published in 1994, is a British magazine for men that is considered to be the "original lads' mag".^[1][2] Its motto is "For men who should know better".^[3] At its peak in the late 1990s it sold over 450,000 copies each month, but by 2013 had collapsed to below 20,000.^[4]

History [edit]

1990s [edit]

Loaded was founded in 1994 by Mick Bunnage, Tim Southwell and James Brown,^[5] a former deputy editor of the music weekly New Musical Express.^[6] It was first published by IPC. The title of the magazine is believed to be named after the Primal Scream song of the same name.^{[citation needed]} In its early days, the magazine's readership was once memorably described as "50% Sun readers and 50% Guardian readers".^{[citation needed]} Brown has described the irreverent comic Viz as an inspiration for Loaded^[7] (and he later bought the comic when he founded the company I Feel Good).^[8] Brown's fanzine Attack On Bzag can be seen as a precursor for Loaded,^{[citation needed]} as can music journalist John Robb's Rox fanzine, which heavily influenced Brown and Loaded^{[citation needed]} with its frenetic style and humorous use of captioned photos.

Commenting on the magazine's creation, Brown said, "I was told you need 99 straight guys and one weirdo to make a magazine. I did it the other way, I chose 99 weirdos."^[9] Loaded captured the lad culture^[10] of the 1990s like no other magazine;^[11] its glorification of British male "rogues" (Liam Gallagher, Oliver Reed, Paul Gascoigne etc.) was only outstripped by its fondness for titillating photoshoots with nubile C-, B-, and occasionally A-list celebrities. However, early covers led on male icons for film and TV - Gary Oldman was on the first cover.^[11]

The Loaded style has been cloned numerous times, most obviously by Emap's FHM^[12] and Maxim,^[12] which became the biggest-selling men's magazine in the US for Dennis Publishing. Loaded also influenced women's monthlies, with Emap launching Minx, "For girls with a lust for life". In January 2004, IPC launched the weekly Nuts, announced as the world's first men's weekly, and Emap quickly followed with Zoo.

Loaded won the prestigious PPA Magazine Of The Year Award an unprecedented two times in a row, in 1995 and 1996. In 2007, Loaded was voted 49th in Industry website goodmagazine.com's Top 51 Magazines of All Time list, for the "Smartest, Prettiest, Coolest, Funniest, Most Influential, Most Necessary, Most Important, Most Essential, etc."^[13] Despite its influence, sales have dropped in recent years: in the first six months of 2007, Loaded recorded a 35% drop in circulation compared to the first half of 2006.^[11] However, in February 2010, Loaded received an ABC circulation figure that was down "just 2% over the period," compared with what Media Week called "eye-popping falls" for its competitors.^[14]

Launch Deputy Editor and later Editor, Tim Southwell, wrote about the early years of Loaded in Getting Away With It (Ebury Press, 1998).^{[citation needed]} James Brown discussed the title at length and the impact it had on '90s culture in the documentary Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop

2000s [edit]

Loaded was edited by Martin Daubney, from August 2003 to October 2010.^[15]

Between 2003-2006, Loaded won numerous industry awards for design and journalism, including 'best designed fashion pages' at the Magazine Design Awards, for a spread of dogs photographed wearing jewellery.^{[citation needed]} Loaded staff writer Jeff Maysh won five industry awards for journalism, including MJA Feature Writer of the Year,^[16] and PTC New Monthly Consumer Journalist of the year.^[17]

Speaking of the relaunched Loaded, Daubney said: "We spent a lot of time talking to our sweet readers, and they said: ‘we love all the great stuff at the heart of the mag: the football, the features, the girls’... We’ve also roped in our celebrity mates - from Richard Bacon on the movies and Vinnie Jones casting an unflinching eye over the sports agenda, to Ross Kemp providing his monthly missive from the front line of modern man.”^[18]

2010s [edit]

IPC Media sold Loaded, along with SuperBike, to Vitality Publishing in 2010.^{[citation needed]}

In April 2012 Paul Chaplin [ Paul Baxendale-Walker ] purchased Loaded on behalf of Blue Media Publishing Group.^[19]

Controversies [edit]

Writer Jon Wilde was punched in the face by snooker player John Higgins, and again by chef Keith Floyd in July 1996, during interviews for the magazine.^[20]

In April 2008, Loaded was forced to apologize to Heinz, after running an article that indicated incorrectly that Heinz once supplied the Nazi regime with a version of alphabet spaghetti consisting of tiny swastikas, a notion that according to The Times, is an urban legend.^[21]

Notable contributors [edit]

See also [edit]

• IPC Media
• Lad culture

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Official website
• "The lads' mag I edited turned a generation on to porn - and now I'm a father I bitterly regret it: A remarkable confession from the longest-serving editor of Loaded" – June 2012 article about former Loaded editor Martin Daubney