Maxim (magazine)

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Maxim
Avril Lavigne on the cover of Maxim in 2008.
Editor-in-chief	Jim Kaminsky (September, 2007 - present)
Categories	Men's
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Dennis Publishing, Inc.
First issue	1995
Country	United Kingdom, United States, others
Language	English, many others
Website	www.maximonline.com

Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its revealing pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, none of which are nudes.

In the United States, Maxim is an industry leader, reporting a circulation of 2.5 million readers which they claim is enough to outsell leading competitors GQ, Esquire, and Details combined. The magazine is now using the brand name to market a myriad of other magazines and projects.

1 Expansion
2 Criticism
3 Celebrities
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Expansion

Due to its success in its primary markets, Maxim has expanded into many other countries, including Argentina, Canada, India, Indonesia, Israel, Belgium, Romania, the Czech Republic, France (marketed under "Maximal"), Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russia (where it stands now as the most popular men's magazine), Serbia, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, and Portugal (marketed under "Maxmen"). A wireless version of the magazine was launched in 2005 across cellular carriers in twenty European and Asian countries.

In 1999, MaximOnline.com was created. It contains content not included in the print version and focuses on the same general topics, along with exclusive sections such as the "Girls of Maxim" galleries and the "Joke of the Day". "Maxim Video" contains video clips of interviews, music videos, photo shoots, and original content. The success of this website inspired Dennis Digital to create sites for its sister publications, such as Blender.

In January 2002, Dennis Publishing established an online and retail video division, Dennis Media Group. In 2005 this division was disbanded and restructured to focus on creating video and multimedia content for the editorial branch of Dennis Digital.

On February 5, 2005, Maxim launched their own radio channel, Maxim Radio, on Sirius Satellite Radio.

On June 5, 2006, the magazine announced plans to build a casino on the Las Vegas Strip north of Circus Circus, but the casino plan failed after local condominium owners complained that the proposed casino would ruin their view. The land was sold to MGM Mirage.^[1]

On June 15, 2007, private equity firm Quadrangle Group, along with long-time media executive Kent Brownridge, announced the acquisition of the parent company of Maxim, Blender, Stuff and MaximOnline.com, although Maxim will continued to be published by Dennis Publishing in the UK.

Maxim is now published under Alpha Media Group.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Criticism

Maxim was protested by the gender issues department of Thunder Bay, Ontario's Lakehead University during an on-campus "Maxim Coors Light Girl Search".^[2]

In 2002, the popular German football club FC St. Pauli removed Maxim magazine advertisements from the team's stadium in response to fan protests over the alleged sexist depictions of women in the ads ^[3].

In 2003, after receiving phone and email complaints from a "well-organized writing campaign"^[4], Maxim issued an apology for a cartoon^[5] depicting Mahatma Gandhi being beaten, kicked and bloodied. The apology did use the word "sorry" but was more of a defence than an apology,^{[citation needed]} discussing that they had chosen Gandhi not because he was Indian or "of color", but because picking him as a target of aggression was "ironic and akin to picking Ted Kennedy to be your designated driver".^[6]

Maxim was criticized by Sports Illustrated model Veronica Vařeková for using her photo, without permission, on a cover. "I’m sure many men will say, ‘what is she talking about,’ but I don’t like (Maxim), personally,” Varekova said, "I don’t want to trash it, but I don’t want to be a part of it either."^[7] Maxim maintains they obtained rights to the photograph.^[8]

In January 2006, Southern Indian actress Kushboo Sundar filed a complaint with local police against the magazine for using and doctoring her image without her permission in the Indian edition of the magazine. Her picture was used as part of a running "Women You Will Never See in Maxim" series featuring doctored photos of prominent celebrities.^[9]

In June 2007, Maxim began photoshoots of female Israeli models who serve in the Israeli army. The campaign drew an angry reaction from lawmaker Colette Avital, a former diplomat who served as Israel's consul-general in New York in the 1990s.^[10]

In February 2008, Maxim was critcized by the rock band The Black Crowes for a review of their upcoming CD, Warpaint, with the band claiming that the magazine reviewed the album without hearing it.^[11] According to Black Crowes manager Pete Angelus, the magazine stated in an email that "Of course, we always prefer to [sic] hearing music, but sometimes there are big albums that we don’t want to ignore that aren’t available to hear, which is what happened with the Crowes. It’s either an educated guess preview or no coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former." The magazine's editorial director James Kaminsky later apologized, stating "It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers."^[12]Facing more criticism over rating albums without listening to them, Maxim magazine maintains it was previewing CDs in its March 2008 issue, not reviewing them, and the mistake was to include star ratings.^[13]