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The news that Dennis is looking at the feasibility of a lifestyle magazine for older men seems a bold move, given the fate of recent attempts at tapping into this market. It flies in the face of the traditional perception of what might interest men after they have stopped reading lads' mags.

The perceived wisdom among most magazine publishers that, after the age of 35, men confine themselves to specialist interest magazines, has lmited the number of attempts to capture the 30-plus male market.

This theory has been backed up by the demise of two high-profile launches, IPC's Later in 2001 and James Brown's Jack in 2004. Both titles folded within two years of launch. Yet, according to insiders, Dennis is going even further down the age track than previous attempts, by targeting men over the age of 40.

Among existing magazines that ostensibly target older men, Conde Nast's GQ, with an ABC of 126,275 has the highest sales, yet it straddles a line between appealing to older sophisticates and drawing in aspirational lads through tantalising covers featuring the same scantily clad babes that you might see in FHM. Other titles - Esquire, The Word and Arena - have smaller circulations.

Demand factor

David Pullan, managing director of FHM Worldwide, is not convinced there is an untapped older male market for the taking. He says he hasn't seen a demand from advertisers to woo older men through lifestyle titles.

He says: "There are clearly a lot of men who have grown up reading men's magazines and then stop, but our view is that we serve those men through Car Magazine, Empire, Trail and Digital Photography."

Vanessa Doyle, press manager at Initiative, which holds the maletargeted General Motors account, agrees. She says: "Men over 40 know what they want. They may take a flick through a younger magazine to hang onto their youth, but eventually they will home in on their niche title."

However, Dennis' plans do get support. Jerome O'Regan, head of buying at BLM Red, an agency which specialises in luxury goods and fashion clients, believes there is a gap in the market because of what he sees as a "backlash" against some lads' mags. O'Regan, who books space for the likes of Paul Smith, currently relies on a selection of business titles to advertise to the over-40s.

Although some newspaper supplements, such as the Mail on Sunday's Live, exclusively target men, O'Regan doesn't feel it's the right setting for his luxury brands. He says: "With fashion, environment is everything. TV has been dropping off and online has a bit of work to do before we use it, but people will always read magazines in one guise or another.

"If Dennis was to come up with a format that groups together content from specialist interest magazines and make it interesting, I would be really supportive of it. It is about time someone did something slightly more mature and cerebral for people."

While there may indeed be a market for older men, reaching it is a different story. David Hepworth, the editorial director at Word magazine, believes the over-40s have been alienated by current news-stand offerings, which are relentlessly targeted at the 20s market.

He says: "These guys are quite hard to reach. It doesn't mean they aren't willing readers - they are - but for a start they don't go to newsagents that often and they are probably more likely to be magazine subscribers."

Tough going

Nuts editor Phil Hilton, wo edited Later, agrees. He believes that any magazine launching to an older age group is going to find it tough. He says: "You can make a magazine that men like, but making a magazine that men actually buy is quite different. Men may sit around in focus groups and say how much they love the title, but their behaviour is quite different."

For any title to work in the market, the over-riding view is that putting semi-naked pop babes on the cover, which clearly works in the younger men's market, would have to be ditched. "Magazine brands tend to be badges that people feel mark them out as one thing not the other. If you are a 50-year-old guy, do you want to be gawping at a 17-year-old in a bikini?" Pullan asks.

The quest to find a format that can draw together the disparate interests of sufficient older men is problematical. But, if it can square the circle, Dennis could be onto a pot of advertising gold.

'OLDER' MEN'S MONTHLIES

- GQ

Most recent ABC: 126,275

GQ followed Arena into the fledgling UK men's market in 1989. Today, it claims that one in five readers is 35-44 and 12% are 45 and over.

- ESQUIRE

ABC: 54,548

NatMags brought the American title, now 73 years old, to the UK in 1991. It is now the most expensive men's magazine at £3.99. Readers are typically between 28 and 40, with a median age of 35.

- ARENA

ABC: 49,296

The UK's first mass-market general interest men's magazine, Arena was launched by Nick Logan, founder of The Face, in 1986. Target audience is 25 to 34-year-olds, described by Emap as "black collar" men in fast-track careers

- LATER

ABC at closure: 70,267

Launched by IPC in 1999 as a magazine for the thirty-something reader. It folded two years later after its median age fell below that of stablemate Loaded and sales dropped from a launch figure of 90,000.

- JACK

ABC at closure: 39,052

Launched by Loaded founder James Brown's I Feel Good company in 2002, this compact older men's monthly sold itself as "an orgy of war, animals, fashion, genius and cool". After its circulation dipped to 33,000, Dennis temporarily came to its rescue and relaunched it in a larger size in autumn 2003, only to close it the following August.