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One way the magazine industry competed with television was to reach niche audiences who were not being served by TV, including people interested in adult subject matter. Playboy, started in 1953 by Hugh Hefner, was the first magazine to address this audience by emphasizing previously taboo topics. Now less popular than before, perhaps because people can freely access soft pornography on the Internet, Playboy and comparable publications nevertheless continue to publish. But newer men’s magazines have broadened their focus to include health (Men’s Health) and lifestyle (Details and Maxim) in addition to provocative photos and stories.

Women’s magazines had long demonstrated that targeting readers by gender was highly effective. Yet as the magazine industry grew more specialized, publishers stepped up their efforts to capture even more of the enormous market of women readers. Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Woman’s Day focused on cultivating the image of women as homemakers and consumers in the conservative 1950s and early 1960s. As the women’s movement advanced in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, such magazines began including articles on sexuality, careers, and politics—topics previously associated primarily with men.