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Funeral march for music mags?

Posted in Media, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs August 16th, 2007 by Branwell Johnson

There’s a lot of focus on the steep decline in the lads’ mag market in the latest ABCs but there is another venerable sector that is suffering gradual erosion, the music magazines.

As a whole music mags dropped 3.1 per cent compared to the last ABCs with only Word showing any growth from a small base. Despite valiant marketing and editorial efforts the NME dropped readers, as did the metal head title Kerrang! while monthlies Q, Mojo and Uncut all shed readers.

Personally I find it a shame but no great surprise. Once the weekly music magazines were a vital countercultural bible, being often the only source of knowledge on music, books, politics, films, sex and drugs – they are where I learnt about Scorsese, David Lynch, The Weathermen, William Burroughs and numerous obscure bands and not-so-obscure bands.

But a segmenting market into ever smaller youth tribes and, of course, the growth of the internet means that they have struggled to find a modern role. MySpace has given musicians and fans the opportunity to communicate without the intermediary of an over-reverent hack and all the mags can do in terms of introducing new music is play catch up.

The monthlies provide a blast of nostalgia for oldies and if Bob Dylan or a Beatle is on the front they know they can shift a decent number of copies to a greying audience - but they are increasingly reliant on and expected to provide CD cover mounts (an enticement bound to lose its allure as digital downloads take hold). The monthlies can also provide the long in-depth articles with pictures that are not so easy to create for or read on a computer screen.

These titles are all trying to migrate their brands online and arguably should have put greater efforts in this direction some time ago. It would be a shame if their print versions disappear completely but its likely Paul and Ringo will outlast the medium that once trumpeted their chart-topping successes to the world.