*insert usual disappointing NME sales headline here*

More gloom for the NME in the latest ABC figures, as sales of the print edition slide below 15,000. MediaGuardian reports:

Music magazine New Musical Express has suffered another slump in its print sales, falling more than a quarter to fewer than 15,000 in the first half of this year.

The 62-year-old IPC Media title had an average weekly sale of 14,312 in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Thursday, down 28.5% on the same period in 2013. Including digital sales, its circulation rose to 15,830.

The figure of just over 1,500 digital sales is probably the one piece of joy - fairly pitiful, but a massive improvement on the three figures they were reporting last time round.

But something has changed. The usual positive talk from the publishers has shifted direction:

Jo Smalley, publishing director of IPC’s music brands, said NME’s total reach across all platforms was now 3.6 million, “bigger than it has ever been” despite its decline in print. In its print heyday, the magazine sold more than 300,000.

Traffic on the NME mobile website grew 85% year on year, with nearly 40% of its total online audience now reading on mobile.

Smalley said: “We are also continuing to explore how NME can further expand its international footprint. This builds upon the launch of NME.com in India and Club NME in Brazil.

“These are just a few of many examples revealing how the NME business model is changing to pursue new opportunities and grow new revenues.”

Now, maybe MediaGuardian just chose to not report it, but it does sound somewhat like IPC is describing a world in which NME is not more than a magazine, but post-magazine. With the news today that Company is abandoning its print edition from next month, who would bet on a weekly, paper NME having that much of a future?

In other sales news, Q is down to just over 46,000; Kerrang also slumped by still manages over 33,000 copies a week (a resilience NME can only dream of); Uncut is down to 50,000; Mojo to 70,000.

We're putting our plans to run a kickstarter to buy and relaunch Sounds on permanent hiatus.