Martin Daubney has left his post as editor of Loaded magazine after seven years at the helm of the now troubled title.
Daubney left with immediate effect last month as owners IPC Media continued negotiations to sell the lads’ magazine to Vitality, the publisher of gay lifestyle title Attitude.
IPC Media announced last month that it had received an offer from Vitality and was discussions over a likely sale, prompting speculation about the title’s future direction.
Circulation of Loaded has fallen sharply in recent years from its peak in the late1990s, when it was an agenda-setting monthly magazine.
In its heyday Loaded spawned a series of copycat titles and changed the shape of the men’s magazine market for a generation.
At its peak in the second half of 1998, Loaded sold an average of 457,318 copies a month.
That had fallen to an average monthly sale of 53,591 in the first six months of this year (a year on year fall of 23 per cent), figures released last month by the Audit Bureau of Circulation confirmed.
Daubney said: ‘Being editor of Loaded has been a blast. But for me, the time seems right to move on to new opportunities and let someone else take over the reins.”
The former News of the World sports columnist joined Loaded in January 2003 as a deputy editor and was promoted to editor in August that year.
Daubney become the magazine’s fifth editor in three years as he took over from Scott Manson.
Before joining Loaded Daubney co-founded the Sin Bin page in the News of the World’s sports section, which he also edited until January 2003.
Prior to the NoW, he was editor of Page3.com for The Sun and features editor on FHM. He has also worked for Maxim and Bella.
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