Touch was a confident music and style magazine that was primarily, though not solely, aimed at knowing, young, urban, super-sleek black Britons. These consumers know who they are; they are trend-setters; they are sensual and hedonistic. Eminem probably wants to be one of them when he grows up. But the advertising industry, which projects itself as so now and cutting-edge, is in truth squeamish and conservative. The colour of money is evidently a disincentive, even in this greediest of sectors Status is another problem. Touch survived for 10 years, and during its worst months it still had a circulation of 35,000, only 10,000 below that achieved by i-D and Arena.Yet Touch, as one black fashion designer said to me, "is thought of as just a nigger ghetto, of no importance to the rich and trendy which is such rubbish". Another radical and exciting magazine 2nd Generation folded after an all-too-brief existence. The writing was extraordinary; it was visually stunning and appealed to young people who are naturally cosmopolitan and open.Jaimie D'Cruz, one of the founders of Touch doesn't simply blame advertisers, some of whom did back the venture.

He is an iron realist: "We started off as a fanzine and were under no illusions that big multinationals would rush to support us Some did, like Levi's, Diesel and Caterpillar. But this is the story of a culture, a music and a lifestyle that is increasingly influential in global pop culture but which is ignored, parodied and misrepresented in the mainstream media."Some critics point out that the magazine had, in reality, become too conformist and imitative, and that the sharpness and authenticity had disappeared. These other issues and points are obviously important, but by all accounts, there was never that much lucrative advertising coming through either before or after the changes and without this revenue, no well produced publication can hope to survive.The advertising industry has been caught out before for outdated views of the market. Remember the ignominy faced by Ford when white faces were superimposed on black employees who appeared in a sales brochure. Then there was that infuriating Persil advert that showed a Dalmatian shaking off its black spots.

In 1998, Naomi Campbell memorably said: "This business is about selling, and blonde and blue-eyed girls are what sells.

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'" Out of 2,000 babies used for a Vauxhall Astra advert, only one (at the back) was black.Yvonne Thompson, managing director of a black advertising and sponsorship company, has said: "It is not considered aspirational to have black people in advertisements. The general market knows nothing about communicating with the black community and often doesn't want to deal with them. It could be a profitable market if they knew how to handle it."Some of this has changed. More black and Asian celebs are seen in mainstream adverts (Meera Syal, Ian Wright, Frank Bruno) and more ordinary Britons of colour are now believed to wash clothes, use sanitary towels and go to the Halifax. This latter company's use, recently, of a bespectacled, likeable black employee who sang gloriously was a brilliant idea. But these are still so exceptional that they are noticed and remembered.