Asian Babes

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Asian Babes is a British pornographic magazine which features depictions of women of South Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai origin.

The magazine was owned by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell publishing company until its sale in 2004 as part of a package of 45 titles to Remnant Media for a reported £20 million (approximately US$39 million).^[1]

1 Other publications
2 Sale
3 Controversy
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Other publications

In 1983, Northern and Shell obtained the license to publish Penthouse in the United Kingdom which led to its publishing a range of adult titles,^[2] Asian Babes among them.

In addition to the adult titles, Northern and Shell was also publishing the celebrity magazine OK! when Desmond purchased the Express Newspapers group in 2000. The Express group included the Daily Express, its sister the Sunday Express, and the Daily Star.^[1] In 2004 he sought acquisition of additional "mainstream" publications—The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph, along with its sister publication The Sunday Telegraph. He was unsuccessful in his bid for The Telegraph, losing out to David and Frederick Barclay, who had long sought to own the paper.^[3]

[edit] Sale

Asian Babes, along with other titles such as Readers' Wives, was part of Desmond's "portfolio" of soft-porn magazines which was offered for sale in 2001 in order to provide cash to invest in the then newly-acquired Express Newspapers group. An article in BBC Online reported that some would view the sale as an attempt to distance himself from the pornography business. The piece went on to say that most analysts believed it to be only a financial move as The Fantasy Channel, Northern and Shell's adult cable channel, wasn't included in the sale.^[4]

The BBC Online piece also reported that Desmond had borrowed £97 million (approximately US$190 million) for the Express group purchase and that while profitable, the portfolio only generated about £20 million (approximately US$39 million) in revenue each year. There were also concerns that some investors were reluctant to invest in porn, and that the market for such magazines was changing.^[4] (Interestingly, when Asian Babes was sold in 2004, the Bank of Scotland later issued an apology for having loaned £5 million (US$9.8 million) to the buyer, Remnant Media.)^[5]

[edit] Controversy

Desmond's ownership of the porn magazines was often criticized and frequently used to bolster criticism of his business practices. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a columnist for Independent in London, England, characterized Desmond as "the seedy porn baron who gives this nation Mega Boobs and Asian Babes and other yuck and muck".^[6] The column criticized the way in which Desmond had made use of the Daily Express;^[7] Alibhai-Brown's column wasn't focused on Desmond's publishing activities with regard to porn; she went on to say: "Actually, I am less bothered about the porn mags than many.... I made myself look at Asian Babes and it is true that the 'babes' themselves look exceedingly full of life, not pushed into any of the poses".^[6]

Information about Desmond's ownership of Asian Babes and other adult magazines was included in a BBC Online 2004 profile^[8] which spoke to the controversy surrounding his ownership of "top-shelf" (pornographic)^[9] magazines at the same time he was attempting to purchase The Daily Telegraph.