FHM March 2009 - No issue

[zanmato79]

The recession bites...

FHM's printer which is based in the UK has went into administration in
December which I believe to be Cooper Clegg. The company already lost
the Bauer contract (who owns FHM) in December too.

Now, a letter has been sent to all subscribers of FHM stating that
there will be no March issue of FHM due to factors beyond FHM's
control, ie. the print supplier has failed. I work within the printing
industry myself and the market is seriously depressed with a lot of
printers going out of business by the day. I heard about this through
word of month as a FHM subscriber told me he received this letter but
it seems the story hasn't surfaced on FHM's website or anywhere else
for that matter, not even on Bauer's website. It remains to be seen if
the advertisers will want compensation due to lost revenue, no doubt
they will.

We usually see the new issue hitting the shelves around now but it
hasn't surfaced yet and it seems unlikely to. So there is no review
this month (unless turns up later in March).

[Webmaster]

There's some more about the printing prblems at FHM here:

http://www.printweek.com/news/874022/Major-contracts-pulled-Cooper-Clegg/

[zanmato79]

Well, this issue of FHM for March did surface after all. I guess word
of mouth is a dangerous thing. Maybe the trouble is on the horizon as
far as printing FHM goes.

This month it's another wafer thin issue of FHM which features the
girl band 'The Saturdays' on the cover (who...?). There is 5 girls in
this group. The girls come across very bland and very unremarkable
although the shoot looks to have been technically well done with some
dynamic lighting. Girls Aloud, they are not however... and the whole
fare is somewhat of a disappointment. The only other shoot in the mag
is of Madeline Zima, who plays Mia Lewis in Californication. This
shoot is better as far as the subject goes, we get the usual fare of
bikini shoots and it's also outdoors. Fans of her should like this
shoot.

Sadly that's about all that is worthly of note. A wafer thin issue
devoid of any notable other content and two shoots for £3.90 is
looking like a bad deal at the moment.