People (Australian magazine)

People

Cover of 9 July 2012 issue
Editor	James Cooney
Categories	Men's magazines
Frequency	Fortnightly
Publisher	Bauer Media Pty Ltd
First issue	1950
Company	Bauer Media Group
Country	Australia
Based in	Sydney

People is a fortnightly Australian lad's mag owned by Bauer Media Group.

The magazine has been published since 1950. It is not to be confused with the gossip magazine known by that name in the United States; that magazine is published under the name Who in Australia.

People focuses on celebrity interviews and scandal, glamour photography, sex stories sent in by readers, puzzles, crosswords, and a jokes page. The publisher is Bauer Media Pty Ltd. The headquarters is in Sydney.

People was reportedly the first weekly magazine in Australia to feature topless models.

People was first published in 1950; it covered "everything from news, to scandals, to true crime stories."

Pix, a weekly men's magazine, merged with People in 1972.

People magazine started a "Covergirl of the Year" quest in the early 1980s with Samantha Fox an early winner. The 1985 winner was Carolyn Kent. People had a deliberate policy of searching for "average Aussie birds" from 1985 onwards, trying to veer away from a reliance on U.K. Page 3 girl pictorials (though Page 3 girls still appeared, and indeed, Tracey Coleman was named Covergirl of the year in 1992 and 1994). Mostly scouted by and photographed by Walter Glover, many popular "average" girls became very popular and frequent cover girls. These include Lynda Lewis, Lisa Russell, Narelle Nixon, Melinda Smith, Raquel Samuels, Tanja Adams (real name Tanja Adamiak) and Belinda Harrow (who also appeared as the debut cover–centre of Picture magazine in 1988.

At its peak in the mid-1980s, People sold about 250,000 copies a week and was the fourth biggest-selling weekly magazine in Australia. Then editor David Naylor said women were 30 per cent of the magazine's audience: "They liked doing the giant crossword on the train, and the stories were fun. We had a few nipples but it was all very wholesome and non-threatening."

Though published by the same company, People had an early fierce rivalry with Picture magazine. Many girls defected from People to Picture, and vice versa. In the early 1990s, People followed the lead of Picture and introduced "Home Girls" – amateur photos sent in by female readers. Picture was seriously eroding People's sales figures by featuring fully nude photos, as opposed to People's topless-only stance. In 1992, People fought back, and went fully nude. Gold Coast model Lisa Haslem became a figurehead at this time. Also, it began to feature more celebrities and once again returned to Page three girls or American models. The reliance on Australian talent diminished.