The UK Home Office and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents have reached agreement that Zoo, FHM and Loaded should be placed on according to this report at M&C News. It will be interesting to see if self regulation works for these titles.
Here in Australia, Zoo, People, Picture, FHM and Ralph are regularly browsed by boys under sixteen and it’s a challenge for newsagents to police. While it’s not our job to be censor, that boys can so openly browse the material is offensive to other customers. Explode is another title posing challenges for newsagents. I hear of complaints each week from customers offended about it and while from a publisher perspective any controversy is considered good for sales, the reality is that sales are not good. Any title upsetting customers have to be profitable to remain in public view.