Attitude’s record year: why reports of the death of diversity and LGBTQ+ media have been greatly exaggerated (sometimes by the LGBTQ+ media)

This may surprise you, but Attitude is thriving. 2025 has just been the biggest and best year in the decade I’ve owned the title. Record revenues, record returns, record year-on-year growth.

Let me put some numbers on that and explain why I feel the need to. Attitude print and online revenue increased 16% last year – bucking the industry trend of decline in the face of AI-driven web traffic decimation. The premium curation offered by print not only lives but prospers, and our newly-launched, digital-only Attitude Uncut edition is flying.

Attitude’s showpiece events (three of them) saw a 27% increase in revenue and our flagship Attitude Awards, for the third successive year, delivered an independently-monitored, third-party media reach in excess of half a billion – coverage worth more than £42m.

I detail this not to be immodest, or because the opportunity to make a sales pitch is potentially useful. Thought it could well be. But because you will likely have seen or heard – endlessly this past year – a different, widely-reported narrative.

“High quality journalism is the price of entry for a media owner”

You may have read elsewhere that following pushback against diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) from the orange man in the White House, and those politically aligned here in the UK, that 8 out of 10 advertisers have stepped away from LGBTQ+ media. That the publishing model is broken, that it needs a community whip-round to fund quality journalism.

I think not.

High quality journalism is the price of entry for a media owner, not a new, crowdfunding opportunity. Everything starts and ends, as it has for my brand for 31 years, with writing that readers will buy, subscribe to and follow. Nothing more or less. And advertisers, regardless of stripe, will always follow readers.

I understand that an LGBTQ+ media owner elsewhere would want to explain away a failed commercial position, and why another might suggest (incorrectly) that matters relating to trans rights should be excluded from some coverage as the subject “makes advertisers nervous.” But it’s taking readers (and advertisers) for fools that is end of days material, nothing else.

“We, the LGBTQ+ community, are under attack”

I’ve not come here to take swings at other outlets, really I haven’t, a win for one member of this community – especially at this time – should be a win for all. But off the back of Attitude’s record year I do have some tough love for our chosen family.

We, the LGBTQ+ community, are under attack, that much is undeniably true. But our capacity, as a collective, for self-harm and turning inward is the stuff of legend. How many people, good people with profile, over the past five to ten years, have you heard bleating about “the commercialisation of Pride?”

Castigating brands for rainbow cashpoints, stripey trainers, LGBT sandwiches, clothing lines, branded flags at the front of parades? Demanding to exclude political parties who don’t absolutely align, or eject Police in uniform for long past sins of the fathers?

All the while looking straight past the fact that the people promoting, creating and funding those things are people like us. People who have persuaded or directed their employers to attach their brand equity to our cause. Who then encounter pushback not just from Trump advocates or disciples of JK Rowling, but from within our community.

So now, in Liverpool, Manchester – and for all I know London as that organisation seems to be eating itself from within – what do we have? Non-commercial pride? No. We have no Pride. Bust, bankrupt or fighting like rats in a sack.

“It doesn’t have to be that way”

And trust me, on the basis of more than 40 years as a journalist and a publisher working with the biggest brands in the world, to any advertiser it’s that cacophony that’s toxic and deeply unattractive. In fact, it’s unsupportable, and it’s uninvestable.

But, as Attitude’s 2025 numbers tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Because if you focus outward and upward, commit consistently and absolutely to a belief system that says trans rights are human rights, are resolute but strident, strong but not angry, and choose celebration over confrontation, then the conversation with marketeers changes.

The value chain that has always existed holds – LGBTQ+ consumers, statistically, have higher levels of disposable income, are more prone to spend and enjoy it, travel further and more often than most, turn left on a plane when doing so, are early adopters of tech, are drivers not followers of fashion.

And, critically, they will respond to and support brands and advertisers that support them, even if it costs more or is more inconvenient to do so.

“The safe space we create for each other is a safe space for any supporter too”

No matter what the political climate, God alone knows that if you can’t pray the gay away then a vocal minority has no chance of simply wishing us away. But what we have to do, collectively, is demonstrate that we are open for business and that the safe space we create for each other is a safe space for any supporter too. And, most importantly of all, and as hasn’t always been the case elsewhere, that we can be a safe pair of hands for any brand.

It’s incredibly important we talk up, and support, those who are active in the DEI space and LGBTQ+ media supporting us, rather than talk the market down. If brands are staying the course, and many are, then others will be encouraged to do the same. Not just out of blind loyalty, but because the business case endures.

And if you don’t believe me, then I cite Virgin Atlantic, Jaguar, Peugeot, British Airways, Bentley Motors, M&S, ZYN, Garnier, L’Oreal and Chanel as just a small, cross-category, cross-section of household-name Attitude advertisers from this past year.

If you tell the advertising industry that advertisers are on the run from our community then you may scare the horses, but show them the opposite – as Attitude can – and there is cause for clear heads.

“Brands trust Attitude as a partner and as a platform for the wider LGBTQ+ community”

Those coming at us, and for us, need to know we have circled the wagons. That brands trust Attitude as a partner and as a platform for the wider LGBTQ+ community, and as a unique vehicle through which to support, align with and empower anyone that calls the rainbow spectrum home. And that those who stand by us have doubled down.

Virgin Atlantic have been with us for 15 years, Jaguar for 10, M&S for 10, Bentley for five, Peugeot for three and counting. British Airways chose 2025 to plant their flag, not to leave.

Any advertiser activating in the LGBTQ+ space in the current climate needs to know that it can be a lightning rod, and some heat may come. But only from a small if vocal minority, however well organised and however well-funded by an oddly myopic billionaire author who (ironically) sometimes pretends to be a man for money.

But with support, preparation and – if needed – the counsel of a media partner that occupies this space with authenticity, credibility and strength, all of that can be overcome to the extent it’s just white noise.

“What other people think of me is none of my business” – Sir Ian McKellen

In the words of Sir Ian McKellen, “I realised long ago that what other people think of me is none of my business.”

As a career journalist and publisher, I’m a storyteller, and being able to share the stories of my LGBTQ+ community through the Attitude brand is the privilege of my lifetime. I get to meet, and platform, the best of us. We’re still here, and so are our advertisers. Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

This is an extract from a keynote address delivered by Darren Styles OBE to the Outvertising Live conference, which Attitude is proud to support alongside Campaign, Channel 4, Durex, Infosum and Publicis Groupe.

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