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Media
Music mags slide in ABCs
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 14 August 2009
Oh dear, not a nice day to be working in the inky music media. While outgoing NME editor Conor McNicholas has done a great deal in recent years to expand and diversify the magazine’s brand – and possibly safeguard its future through its new online, on air and live spin offs – he hasn’t managed to stop the probably inevitable decline in readership of the flagship print bit of the operation. In the latest set of ABC figures IPC’s big music mag saw its circulation slump 27% year on year to just 40,000.
The only compensation for Team NME, and their new editor Krissi Murison, is the news that main rival Kerrang! didn’t fair any better, the Bauer rock weekly seeing its circulation fall 28% year on year to 43,253. The monthlies were also down, including Uncut, Mojo and Q, while Metal Hammer, a recent growth title, also saw sales slide a little, down to 46,004. It’s sister title Classic Rock was the only mainstream music title to report good news, its circulation up to 70,301.
After years of people discussing if and when print media will die, for the first time it really feels like traditional publishers are on the skids, with the ever more expansive normally free internet and a severe advertising recession proving to be a killer combination. From daily newspapers to the once flagship weekly and monthly music, entertainment and lifestyle mags, expect a number of iconic print media brands to disappear off our newstands in the coming 18 months.
