Yesterday Wal-Mart announced that it had halted sales of Maxim, Stuff and FHM, men's magazines that feature a mix of scantily clad starlets and bawdy humor but go to some lengths to avoid being labeled as pornography.
The move was made after pressure from Christian groups, which have been successful in lobbying Wal-Mart in the past regarding magazine content. Wal-Mart once even refused to stock Sports Illustrated, because of the swimsuit issue.
Maxim has been sold in Wal-Mart for the last three years, while FHM was added recently. The standards and general content of the magazines have not changed.
Maxim, Stuff and FHM have a combined circulation of almost five million, with much of their success deriving from newsstand sales. Maxim is the largest of the three, with an average circulation in the second half of last year of 2.5 million, and it sells an average of 848,000 copies a month on newsstands, a highly lucrative revenue stream.
Stephen Colvin, president of Dennis Publishing USA, which owns bothMaxim and Stuff, shrugged off the move, noting that Wal-Mart accounts for "less than 3 percent" of the copies his company sells at newsstands.
However, free speech activists are concerned that the sheer size of Wal-Mart means a boycott by that company on any magazine or product can effectively ruin a publishing house, effectively placing Wal-Mart in the role of a corporate censor for America.
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