No Rock And Roll Fun

CIRCULATION FLOWS: The latest set of magazine circulation figures aren't very encouraging for anyone in the pop press, although some have more reason to worry than others. In a generally dropping sector, and facing fairly stiff (no pun intended) competition from the Zoo/Nuts weeklies, the NME has remained more-or-less steady since the last six monthly figures, selling 69,823 copies as against 70,116. It's a drop of just over three per cent on its position this time last year. The greatest comfort for the NME will be the continued slump of Kerrang, which not so long ago had overtaken the paper stealing its title as the World's Biggest Selling Rock Weekly. Now, though, it's 8000 odd copies behind, and losing readers at an enormous rate; 11 per cent down on its glory days a year ago. Surprise of the batch is Mixmag - selling an extra three hundred issues compared with the end of 2003, perhaps suggesting that it's reached its hardcore audience now and the mass desertion of dance music mag readers is over.

Q manages to remain the best selling music title overall, despite a 12.6 per cent drop year on year; it's going to have to hope that the redesign works, otherwise next time round it'll be below the 150,000 mark. Stablemate Mojo has continued to lose ground to IPC's Uncut, which suggests that given a choice between a magazine with long articles about dead guys, and a magazine with long articles about dead guys and a free CD, the free CD will tip the balance.