Fable's man at the top gears up to fight for the pink pound.(Jonathan Keane of Queercompany to launch gay magazine)(Brief Article)

Jonathan Keane believes that gay mags must grow up

"It's an ambitious move," Jonathan Keane admits, of his plans to launch an independent fashion-led lifestyle magazine into the toughest market conditions in recent memory.

Ambitious it certainly is. Add to that the fact that the magazine Keane will edit is to launch under the bizarre, some might say dreadful, title Fable and that it will be targeting a largely unproven sector and you start to think suicidal might be a better word. It's a set of conditions that, under normal circumstances, would have rival publishers gleefully beginning the countdown to extinction -- and Fable doesn't even hit the newsstand until 12 October.

However, Fable is not a typical magazine. It is the latest brand extension of Queercompany, which launched last November with a website, a controversy-courting press and poster campaign and a stash of Norwegian dough behind it. As such, it promises to deliver the kind of precisely targeted ABC1 readership that publishers have been fantasising about for the past few years.

"Many recent launches have been on a wing and a prayer," Keane says, citing InStyle and Bare. "Publishers have been looking for new markets that just don't exist and a lot of new titles have been left flailing around. We are our readership and we're confident about who our market is."

The "we" Keane refers to is Queercompany's core of "very creative gay men and lesbians". He believes the independent operation is capable of tapping into gay markets that the IPCs of this world have less of a feel for. His confidence is further boosted by the faith that Fable's timing is just right.

"We're at a stage now where people are living their lives as a gay from an early age," he says. "Now, for the first time, you have a 25- to 40-year-old gay population who know who they are."