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 Seldom
have two men achieved so much without really being noticed.
Like our next door neighbours, we may know their names and
have a vague idea of what they look like, but what else do
we actually know about the two men who publish Pink Paper
and Boyz - the magazines that set the queer agenda and act
as a focus for mainstream gay life?
David Bridle and Kelvin Sollis are private people;
that is perhaps their most endearing feature. Unlike many
'queens' who have hit the big time, the backroom boyz haven't
opted for the limelight. They haven't chosen a life of excessive
luxury either, apparently preferring intimate dinner parties
to glittering public functions or nightclubs. As one of their
close circle of friends says: 'socially, they are very good
company and fun to be with, but they both have a slightly
paranoid streak and hate being around anyone who might challenge
them. They'd rather stay at home than go to places where they
might be confronted by readers or anyone who disagrees with
them.'
Their longing for privacy seems to extend further
than that though, leading them to hide away at other times
when it might have been better for them to have been more
open. Kelvin Sollis didn't attend court in 1998 when his former
typesetters, Goodfellow and Egan, chased one of his magazines
for a bad debt after it abruptly terminated its contract after
eighteen months. A judgement was made in his absence and one
of his companies, Boyz Own Productions, was liquidated in
the High Court last year as a result. He refuses to talk about
it.
Several of his and Bridle's other companies,
including those that have published the Pink Paper and Boyz,
have only very recently filed their Companies House records.
Now that up-to-date information is available, it is clear
that the company that publishes the magazines is not the same
as the company that produces them. Bridle and Sollis refuse
to comment on that either.
Although they originally agreed to answer any
questions that Outcast cared to put to them in writing, that
offer was withdrawn when the questions arrived. Instead, I
received a rather terse letter from the Head of Contentious
Media at Mishcon de Reya solicitors. Contentious media? Don't
make me blush.
Outcast will, of course, allow Bridle and Sollis
- or the Head of Contentious Media - the opportunity to respond
to this article in the next issue.
Empire
As well as owning the Pink Paper,
Boyz, Fluid and Homosex, Britain's most successful gay media
owners have also forged links with a host of other businesses
and good causes, including London Mardi Gras - the new 'Gay
Pride', the SoNow Internet portals and Body Positive. They
even run their own HIV charity, 'Positive Lives', which was
set up five years ago to establish hostels and a network of
helplines for HIV positive people. (It doesn't appear to have
begun work on those projects yet, and Bridle and Sollis did
not answer our questions about the charity's finances.)
The paper trail goes back to the mid-1980s when
Kelvin Sollis owned a majority share of Mindmaster Limited,
one of the many limited companies that has been used to publish
the popular weekly newspaper Pink Paper.
The Pink Paper's founders Stephen Burton and Stephen Burn
claim that Sollis bullied them into resigning from Mindmaster.
They claim he tried to hold the 'paper to ransom by changing
the conditions of a loan. Sollis refuses to comment.
Recently, the Pink has been published by Chronos Publishing
Services Limited, a company jointly owned by Bridle and Sollis.
Before that it was published by Chronos Publishing Limited,
a similarly-named company owned by the same two men. It's
said to be a running joke in the magazine's North London offices
- which company will be put on the masthead this week?
The regular switching from one publisher to
another will come as a surprise to many readers, and may even
be news to some of those who deal with the companies on a
regular basis. Both companies use the same logo and have the
same design on their letterheads - only the word 'Services'
is inserted at the foot.
One thing that both Chronos companies have in common is the
apparently relaxed attitude they have to filing documents
with Companies House. Until my letter arrived with Bridle
and Sollis at the end of February, no annual accounts had
been filed for Chronos Publishing since 1997, and Chronos
Publishing Services had not even filed its first annual return.
Fortunately, things were quickly corrected.
Chronos Publishing's accounts for the year ending 1998 were
filed last month, as were the following year's. Both show
an annual income of around £50,000 and a profit of less
than £4,000. Not very impressive for a company that
has been publishing two of Britain's leading gay weeklies.
It must be assumed from that, that the advertising
revenue - which, for Pink Paper, Boyz, Fluid and Homosex combined,
is estimated to be over £8m per year - has gone through
a different company. It can't be Chronos Publishing Services
because that company wasn't incorporated until November 1998.
Nor can it be Windwood Limited, which filed 'small accounts'
last Summer and shows an income of well below £8m. So
which company is it? Bridle and Sollis refuse to say.
When a journalist from Punch asked about this last month,
Sollis said he was only in the office a few days a month and
was unsure how the companies were structured. He said he would
fax Punch a full explanation. He didn't.
Other oversights with regard to Companies House include Kelvin
Sollis signing Chronos Publishing's annual return last October,
two months after he officially resigned as a director. According
to the Companies House register, Chronos Publishing was without
any directors from October 1999 until February 2000. Under
the Companies Act, all companies (even dormant ones) must
have at least one director.
Charity
In the Summer of 1996, egged on by wealthy friends
in the charity industry, Bridle and Sollis set up Positive
Lives, their own HIV charity. They said it would transform
the lives of HIV-positive people, but instead it has been
surprisingly quiet - apparently only used to publish one of
their commercially-successful magazines, Positive Times, which
has now ceased trading.
The original trust deed for Positive Lives sets
out plans to establish several hostels for young people around
Britain; launch a central organisation to promote the use
of those hospices; create a network of helplines that would
give free advice and information; and set up an archive of
lesbian and gay history. There has been no news about these
exciting projects, and Bridle and Sollis refused to respond
to our questions about them.
The only objective that Positive Lives does
seem to have pursued is the publication of Positive Times,
a free magazine that was launched as a commercial concern
in 1995, and then taken over by the charity in 1996. It ceased
publishing last year. The magazine, which made a profit during
its first year, received a substantial income from the drug
companies and health groups that regularly advertised in it.
In publishing the magazine through a charity, Bridle and Sollis,
together with their fellow trustees - William Curry, Simon
Brycesson and Glyn Maddocks - took on a number of new benefits
and responsibilities.
Accountability
Like Chronos' relationship with Companies House,
Positive Lives appears to have a relaxed approach to filing
documents with the Charities Commission. A veteran CHE activist
has lodged a complaint with the Charities Commission as a
result. The original trust document for Positive Lives confirms
that at least £1,000 was donated to the charity when
it was set up in 1996. At the Mike Rhodes Trust awards later
the same year, activists were told that a further £20,000
had been donated. We estimate that the advertising revenue
from Positive Times over the three-year period from 1996-1999
was approximately £600,000, and that subscriptions would
have generated a further £5,000. We cannot know what
donations, covenants or other gifts the charity may have received.
Just as with the commercial titles, there seems to be confusion
over whether the charity that published Positive Times was
also responsible for running the magazine and whether it received
the revenue generated through advertising. It is possible
that, although the magazine was published by the charity from
December 1996, some of the advertising revenue was being received
elsewhere. Outcast has seen invoices relating to one community
group's advertising contract with Positive Times and the Pink
Paper during the period that Positive Times was being published
by the charity. Windwood Limited - a commercial company -
issued the invoices for both titles and both show the same
VAT registration details and internal account number. When
asked about this, Bridle and Sollis refused to comment.
Pink power
Some may ask what the relevance of all this
is to your average punter who just wants to flick through
his weekly copy of Boyz while sipping vodka in his local gay
bar. Isn't all this just media politics, one could ask, of
the kind that makes Punch fascinating to those in the loop,
but largely irrelevant to the population as a whole?
I think that the way that Bridle and Sollis
have used their power is relevant because I think it has had
a huge impact on the gay community. One former editor, Nigel
Edwards, noticed a definite shift towards 'consumerism' in
the Pink Paper's editorial policy around the Summer of 1996
- the same time that gay activists claim the queer community
became increasingly 'apathetic' and 'difficult to stir'. It's
difficult to conclude that one had no bearing on the other.
Of course, there is no reason that Bridle and Sollis should
have to use their magazines for the benefit of the community.
Edwards also told Outcast that his former employers
told him to cover news stories in ways that he was uncomfortable
with, in order to keep advertisers happy. 'I was keen to ensure
that the Pink Paper kept a balanced approach to what was going
on over AIDS and AZT', he says. 'We weren't scientists ourselves
and I didn't think that we should accept verbatim the releases
put out by the drugs companies. 'But after some initial balancing
articles, Bridle told me flat that drugs companies were big
and important advertisers, and they were not to be upset.
So any "dissident" stuff got cut out.'
Andrew Saxton, another former editor of the
Pink Paper, told the New Statesman last year that there were
many times that he felt under pressure to compromise his integrity
to please Bridle. 'There is a fine line between censorship
and honest journalism', he said. 'As an editor, I had to fight
extremely hard to keep us on the right side of that line.'
Other former journalists claim that Bridle and Sollis have
a 'black list' of people who are not to be mentioned or given
any publicity in their magazines. One former reporter says
that Peter Tatchell was once airbrushed out of a picture because
the senior managers 'disapproved' of his protest at Canterbury
Cathedral. 'This wasn't an editorial decision', he said. 'It
was simply because they didn't like Tatchell and didn't want
him in their magazine.'
Nigel Edwards also claims to have witnessed Stonewall's Angela
Mason being cropped out of a photo after she upset Sollis.
He says: 'I found the Pink Paper was being used as a weapon
in petty score settling. There was a black list of people
or organisations in the gay community we were not allowed
to mention.'
Influence
It could all have been so different. Like Oscar
Schindler, who began his business life by profiting from a
marginalised community living in a ghetto, Bridle and Sollis
could have used their wealth and influence to leave a mark
on society and change the world for the better. Their magazines
could have provided a rallying point for activists and a vehicle
for challenging society's attitude towards lesbians and gay
men. Instead the two men serve as a simple reminder that,
just because someone is gay, it doesn't necessarily mean they
are on the side of gay liberation in its purest sense. Rather
than challenging oppression and the ghetto-mentality, Bridle
and Sollis have profited, in all senses of the word, from
it. Their comfortable lives come at a cost.
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