Maxim’s Keg Stands Not So Impressive When Coors Light Isn’t Sponsoring Them

How does a media pundit get away with a Christmas column? By tagging a trend piece to an expiring news peg, that’s how. Enter David Carr’s Dec. 25 item about the coming fall of the lad mag. Publisher Emap just closed FHM, so surely Maxim’s kin are doomed, yes?

In part, the lad magazines got lapped by technology. YouTube looks like a lad contents page with full-motion video. TMZ has gone Defcon 4 in real-time over Britney???s pantygate. And, Heavy.com has America???s Suck Countdown, with a joke-a-second cadence that would be difficult for anybody to catch up with, let alone a magazine.

???It is tough to come up with something fresh in the category,??? said Greg Gutfeld, a former editor of Stuff in the United States and Maxim in Britain. ???The only innovation is price and frequency, and the only price that is working is free and the only frequency that is working is daily.???

Thank goodness, then, that shuttered Hachette title Shock will keep kickin’ online at ShockU.com. That’s totally gonna be a success.