Gay lifestyle magazine Attitude has plunged into financial crisis for the second time this year with staff going unpaid since the end of April.
The title looks set to miss its second monthly issue this year after staff refused to work until salaries were paid by its new publisher, a start-up called Giant Clipper.
The magazine has also been delisted from WHSmith’s high street stores after distribution fees went unpaid.
An insider at Attitude told Press Gazette that staff had been consistently reassured by Giant Clipper managing director Simon McKay that money would be freed up to pay both salaries and contributors, but that none had been forthcoming.
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The July edition of the magazine would have been scheduled for publication at the end of this week and is now unlikely to surface. McKay had not returned Press Gazette’s calls at the time of going to press.
In January, Attitude did not go to press after financial difficulties at its old publisher, Remnant Media, which subsequently went into administration in March.
The title was eventually sold to Giant Clipper, run by McKay, a former business development manager in Trinity Mirror’s national sales operation.
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Remnant Media was established in March 2004, when the company bought 45 adult titles from Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell. Its sister company, SMD Publishing, published Front, Hotdog and DVD World.
None of the gay monthly titles publish ABC figures, but 12-year-old Attitude is regarded as the biggest selling of the genre, beating Millivres Prowler titles GT and AXM.
Attitude’s editor Adam Mattera won BSME editor of the year in 2005 in the men’s monthly category and the title has won a string of celebrity exclusives including Elton John’s first interview on his civil partnership to David Furnish.
Press Gazette understands that a number of interested parties have emerged for the magazine, but have yet to have entered talks with the publisher over its future.
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