The Decline of the Music Magazine

IntroductionIn recent years, popularity of the music magazine has declined massively, after their huge success in the Nineties. It is argued that there are several possible reasons for this, which will be discussed in this PowerPoint.

‘MOJO’ was one of the most popular music magazines worldwide in the Nineties, but it has suffered a drop in sales of almost 5% in the past six months, reaching just 70, 677 people worldwide! However, arguably the most significant symbol of the decline of the music magazine is the fall in ‘NME’s’ sales to just 14, 212 physical issues each week – a drop of 19% in total! Most of this can be explained by the magazine’s choice to revert to a free magazine in September 2015, however.

Technology’s Involvement in the Decline

It’s not known exactly what has caused the decline, but it is suggested that it is largely due to the development of technology, the Internet and social media. Why would we pay for a music magazine when demos, interviews and chart listings are readily available for free on the Internet? Many people today have become accustomed to just picking up their smartphone or tablet to find information, rather than going out and searching for it, which hasn’t helped the case of the music magazine. However, some music magazines have introduced a digital version of their prints to keep up with newspapers, and to attract a new audience who revel in technology. NME did this, but surprisingly they have only managed to gain 1200 subscribers to this digital version.

Poor Editorial Choices and their Effect on the Decline

Many people blame the fall of the music magazine on poor editorial choices made back in the 1990s. Both ‘NME’ and ‘Melody Maker’ are said to have lost readers when they ditched the scornful writing and long features, and replaced them with a Top 100 list-mania. After this, they certainly became less readable publications, and they offended some of their audience by making the patronising assumption that teens didn’t want to read long features.

Further Reasons for the Decline

One of the main attractions of music magazines in their peak was that it was a good way for budding young musicians to be inspired and spotted. The magazines included articles about music facilities in your local area, encouraging people to take advantage of them, but today, the Internet has made it so easy for new artists to be created and found through new platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, that this section of the magazine is no longer relevant, and some of the appeal of the music magazine has been lost.

An ExampleA good way of showing the decline of the music magazine is by using the example of ‘Smash Hits’, which folded on 13th February 2006, after almost three decades of circulation. It managed to shed 840, 000 readers in the 17 years prior to its collapse, but at one time, ‘Smash Hits’ was an extremely successful pop magazine, which was mainly read by teenage girls who wanted to get the gossip on pop stars. The Guardian said that it “understood pop perfectly with its impertinent tone and peculiar sense of humour”.One of the main arguments for its collapse is the fact that television, the Internet and other medias have stolen some of their business. TV channels, like ‘MTV’, provide a massive insight into celebrities lives through interviews and programmes that they air about them, as do other entertainment magazines and articles found on the Internet, removing the need for teenage girls to buy ‘Smash Hits’ to find out gossip about popular pop icons, as they can now do so in alternative ways that are often easier and cheaper.In addition to this, the music industry has spent the past ten years trying to rid pop stars of everything that makes them interesting , to ‘media train’ them and make sure that they don’t embarrass themselves or their label, and to make them appear like ‘perfect’ American models which society’s becoming obsessed by.Also, by the 1980s, pop was beginning to move over to make room for other genres of music, such as punk and indie. To keep up with the new trends, ‘Smash Hits’ decided to dedicate a whole page to indie music. This was catastrophic because the magazine was trying to appeal to too many audiences. Teenage girls interested in pop weren’t happy about there being an indie section in their pop magazine, and indie music fans weren’t happy to pay for a whole magazine, just to be interested in one page.