Business Diary: Crushed 'Nuts' shows plight of the lads' mags

Crushed 'Nuts' shows plight of the lads' mags

Phwoaaar, look at the slim figures on them... Unfortunately for FHM, Nuts and Zoo it's not just their cover stars looking petite after the ABC published circulation figures.

It seems that high street honeys, photos of horrific injuries and interviews with sportsmen no longer cut it. The lads' mag has lost its sheen since the 1990s heyday, when FHM peaked at sales of 775,000 a month. It now sells 235,000. Showing that men are more preoccupied with their own figures, Men's Health has became the biggest selling men's interest magazine for the first time, with a circulation of 250,000. Nuts itself dropped about 20 per cent.

CFO says Asda's Bond is 100% committed

Asda chief financial officer, Judith McKenna, said chief executive Andy Bond was "a bit bored" of the media badgering him about potentially becoming the next boss of Marks & Spencer. "He is 100 per cent committed to the business," she said yesterday. Where could the media have got this crazy idea? Two weeks ago, Mr Bond told an interviewer: "I would imagine there would be a very short list and I would imagine I would be qualified to do the job."

Fashion goes back to Stone Age sexism

Today's award for most ham-fisted PR tactic goes to Hot Tuna and its advisers Pelham PR. In a desperate attempt to sex up its £1.1m cash call the fashion retailer's release is accompanied by various snaps of models simulating ecstasy in skimpy bikinis. If you thought this sort of thing went out of fashion in the 1980s you'd be very wrong.

Palm in spy games as Pre phones home

First Google was accused of putting a spy in your pocket, with the launch of Latitude and now Palm has been caught up in a similar storm. A US blogger found his whizzy new Palm Pre phone was sending updates to the company every day. It would send the phone's location, the applications used and information on when they crashed. All without him realising. Palm was hardly apologetic, saying its privacy policy was like many in the industry and has "detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer's information, all towards a goal of offering a great user experience". But who's using whom?

Number of the day: 22%

Companies in FTSE 100 with "no prospect" of clearing their pension deficits, according to research.