Stephen Colvin is president of Dennis Publishing USA, the small but buzz-generating publisher of consumer titles such as Maxim, Stuff, Blender and The Week. Colvin and the company's flagship title Maxim -- both British imports -- earned accolades last month as Adweek's Magazine Executive of the Year and No. 1 Hot Magazine of 2002, respectively. Colvin spoke with I Want Media about the secret of Maxim's success, how the magazine business is different in Europe, why the National Magazine Awards should be renamed, and offers advice to aspiring magazine company CEOs.

I Want Media: Maxim turned 5 this month and is a huge success. What is Maxim doing that other men's magazines aren't?

Stephen Colvin: It's the real thing. It's exactly what a general interest men's magazine should be -- entertaining, sexy and useful. Maxim provides a compelling read while also reminding guys that it is actually O.K. to be a guy. It helps them navigate through the many challenges that guys face in today's world. And have a good clever laugh about it along the way.

IWM: Are any special events planned to celebrate Maxim's 5th birthday?

Colvin: We're holding a party on April 25 for our wonderful "Maxim Hot 100," which coincides with the 5th anniversary. This is our annual ranking of the hottest up-and-coming actresses and models. It's turned out to be a very popular casting tool in Hollywood. Renny Harlin spotted Estella Warren in the No. 1 spot a few years back and cast her in his movie "Driven."

IWM: Do your recent honors from Adweek provide a certain cachet in the industry? Do they help with ad sales efforts? What do these awards mean to you personally and to Maxim?

Colvin: Yes, they help with advertising sales because it is more endorsement and recognition for Dennis Publishing -- more important for an unknown start-up like Dennis than the big New York publishing establishments. Personally, it has been great to receive the recognition. My mum back in Belfast was very proud.

IWM: Despite the Adweek honor, Maxim was completely overlooked in this year's National Magazine Awards, which will be presented May 1, while other men's titles -- GQ, Esquire, Details, Men's Journal -- received multiple nominations. Does that reflect poorly on Maxim?

Colvin: In my opinion, the National Magazine Awards should be renamed "The National Book Awards," since they focus almost exclusively on long-form writing. A new National Magazine Award should be created that rewards magazines for true publishing success -- readership, advertising, profitability, cultural impact.

IWM: What's your take on the recent controversy regarding Maxim's April "Best Cities" feature, in which different cities were named "Best City" in different editions of the magazine? Was it a planned PR stunt?

Colvin: It was a great April's Fool prank to coincide with the magazine being founded on April 1, 1997. It was planned as an article that would sell a lot of copies and be talked about, so from that perspective it was "PR friendly." Anything that creates debate -- well, anything legal and moral -- is a good thing. And Maxim got local radio jocks and journalists defending their cities, or debating why their city just sucks and needs to be improved. All of Maxim's fans got the joke, and we probably made some new friends and enemies as well. We often say people in this business take themselves too seriously -- this prank definitely showed up both sides of the coin.

IWM: In the U.K., where the "lads mags" concept originated, many of these titles are said to be facing readership declines. Is this a concern for the U.S. edition of Maxim?

Colvin: In the U.K., the pie has been sliced up a lot in the last three years. Decline is a bit misleading. And the U.K. market is more prone to vast fluctuations because it is all newsstand-based circulation. The subscription-based model in the States creates long-term readership and an element of stability for the publisher. So even if there was a decline in the U.K., it would be irrelevant to U.S. market. Comparing all of Western Europe to the U.S. is more representative. And believe me, men's magazines, especially Maxim, are alive and well all across Western Europe.

IWM: The Week, your newsweekly, is marking its first anniversary this month. How's it doing? Do you consider it a success so far?

Colvin: Any magazine that has everyone raving about the editorial content is a success. That is what has happened to The Week. It has got off to an excellent start. The editorial mix is right, the editorial tone is right. The testimonials are staggering -- P.J. O'Rourke, Dominick Dunne, R.W. Apple, Chris Hitchens, Paul Smith, Harvey Weinstein, Tina Brown. Advertisers love it and understand it -- a lot of them are addicted readers, just like myself. We will continue to invest in the circulation, but please realize that this is not going up against Time or Newsweek. This is a very different animal in publishing, with a long-range plan to grow slowly and steadily. We will be very happy with a circulation of a few hundred thousand -- subscriptions are minimum $50 per year.

IWM: Blender, your new music magazine, is less than a year old. Are you happy with its performance? Will the proposed new MTV/Hearst music magazine give it a run for its money?

Colvin: Blender has also got off to a great start, with a rate base of 350,000. Its newsstand sales are greater than Rolling Stone and Spin combined. The industry likes it, advertisers understand it. Again, early days but great potential. I have not heard anything concrete about an MTV/Hearst magazine. But clearly there is a yearning for a "purist" music magazine that focuses on an area so close to the hearts of millions.

IWM: How would you describe the relationship of your magazines with their respective Web sites? Are your magazine sites primarily for promotion? Do they offer original content? Do they produce revenue?

Colvin: The Web sites are to give our readers the same experience as they get from the magazine, but on a daily basis. Content is updated daily. And yes there is a lot of it. Revenues are excellent, especially from Maxim Online, which will make a profit this year. Stuff Online also produces good revenues and a lot of subscriptions. The other two sites have not been fully launched.

IWM: For such a forward-thinking company when it comes to the Web, why doesn't Dennis Publishing USA have its own corporate Web site?

Colvin: We are actually developing one at the moment. We've been riding such fast-paced growth for the past five years that the corporate site has taken a back seat. But it is definitely coming.

IWM: The ad market for magazines has been brutal this past year. How's it looking now? Are you seeing signs of improvement?

Colvin: Definite signs of improvement in the last two months. We believe that the worst is over.

IWM: How would you describe the general state of magazines in the U.S.?

Colvin: There are too many magazines, and that makes people think the industry is a mess. But there are a lot of magazines in very good health. Obviously, newsstand is difficult because of the low sell-throughs that most magazines experience. There is too much reliance on advertising revenue, which means that publishers quite naturally are very concerned about delivering the product the advertisers want. But overall, the business is pretty healthy with a lot of publishers making good money from core titles. We just need less contrived magazines.

IWM: What do you mean by a "contrived" magazine? Can you give some examples?

Colvin: Contrived magazines are those that are positioned as mainstream consumer magazines, but for some reason less than 100,000 people out of population of 300 million choose to buy them from the newsstand. I don't want to give specific examples, as I wish to take the high road on this, but I can tell you the men's lifestyle category alone has at least a couple of prime contenders.

IWM: You have headed up Dennis Publishing USA for nearly six years now. What have you learned in that time? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

Colvin: I had no understanding of the U.S. market when I arrived. But publishing is the same the world over. In many respects, it is better to learn the business in Europe because publishers are exposed to all aspects of the business -- editorial, design, circulation, ad sales, marketing, finance, production. My British perspective meant that I really cared about getting the readers, a true circulation and keeping the staffing levels low. No matter where you are, it is all about having a magazine with a clearly defined position. After that, it is down to getting the right people and knowing all aspects of publishing to ensure that they are at least going in the right direction. I now have a healthy respect for how big this country is and the challenges that one faces in marketing to it.

IWM: You are relatively young -- 39 -- to be running a magazine company. Does your age give you a perspective that other magazine CEOs may lack?

Colvin: For the kind of magazines we publish, it is beneficial. I am in the demo and relate to our staff and our readers. It is a young company. I'm hoping to get some of that stuff Dick Clark uses, but that's a long way down the road.

IWM: What is the best aspect of your job?

Colvin: The variety. I love all aspects of magazine publishing. It is not really about the type of magazine we are publishing but about the variety of disciplines needed.

IWM: The worst aspect?

Colvin: Added value. I find it difficult to accept that publishers in this country have to risk millions of dollars to create a medium for companies to reach their customers and then [advertisers] expect us to also pay for their marketing.

IWM: Do you have any advice for aspiring magazine company CEOs?

Colvin: A lot of the senior people in U.S. publishing are from sales backgrounds, which means they've grown up focusing on the revenue part of business. My advice to any aspiring CEO would be to get to know circulation and P&L's intimately. I say that because getting to know circulation is quite difficult if you have not been personally exposed to it over a long period of time. But it is worth the effort. After all, it is all about the bottom line, and if you don't understand how the ad revenues make it to the bottom line or the same for any revenue channel, you will never understand publishing in its entirety. This comes from someone who has spent the first seven of his 16 years in the business as a sales guy.