Kerrang find a new home

Mixmag media, who own, erm, Mixmag, have bought Kerrang! from Bauer and have big plans for the UK's last rock weekly (No, the NME no longer counts). The plan involves it ceasing to be a rock weekly.

Campaing Live reports:

Jerry Perkins, who runs Mixmag Media, plans to turn Kerrang! from a print weekly to a monthly in the UK and focus on building its global, digital audience.

"Mixmag and Kerrang! are quite similar – they’re ‘f*** it’ audiences," Perkins said. "They like what they like and don’t care about what anyone else thinks."

I think this is a polite way of saying "they're clinging to their unfashionable music tastes, and prepared to pay".

Bauer keeps the Kerrang brand for TV and radio - which isn't going to be easy; the K! radio playlist has drifted quite a way from the K! paper worldview even under the same roof. (Kerrang Radio is less 'fuck it' and more 'gosh, if we must'.)

As part of the deal, Mixmag have also bought the Face brand, with plans to revive it online, and maybe in print. At the time it closed in 2004, The Face had managed to slot itself into self-mythologised irrelevance, so it'll be interesting to see how that works online.

Kerrang! Awards 2014: The young people finally give the Quo respect

Kerrang! did its awards yesterday - so we finally can acknowledge that Gerard Way is the best at Twitter (within the tolerances of Kerrang! readers). The full list of winners suggests why the paper might be struggling to hold on to readers:

BEST EVENT
Fall Out Boy – Save Rock And Roll Tour

BEST BRITISH NEWCOMER
Neck Deep

BEST INTERNATIONAL NEWCOMER
5 Seconds Of Summer

KERRANG! INSPIRATION
The Dillinger Escape Plan

KERRANG! ICON AWARD
The Ramones

BEST SINGLE
You Me At Six – Fresh Start Fever

BEST VIDEO
Deaf Havana – Boston Square

BEST LIVE BAND
Bring Me The Horizon

THE RELENTLESS AWARD
Watain

KERRANG! SERVICE TO ROCK
Status Quo

BEST ALBUM
Architects – Lost Forever // Lost Together

BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND
Fall Out Boy

BEST BRITISH BAND
You Me At Six

KERRANG! HALL OF FAME
Deep Purple

KERRANG! HERO
Gerard Way

BEST TV SHOW
Game Of Thrones

BEST VIDEO GAME
The Last Of Us

BEST FILM
The Lego Movie

BEST COMEDIAN
Jarrod Alonge

TWEETER OF THE YEAR
Gerard Way

HOTTEST FEMALE
Taylor Momsen – The Pretty Reckless

HOTTEST MALE
Andy Biersack – Black Veil Brides

BEST FESTIVAL
Slam Dunk

When You Me At Six is leading the field for the best band in your realm, you're pretty much putting a message on the front page 'awaiting delivery of new inspiration - please call back in 2015 for an update'.

Still, interesting to see Status Quo and The Ramones getting the 'let's give an award to someone who might generate wider interest in our awards' awards - neither band (nor Deep Purple, come to that) feel especially like they're the forebears of what a Kerrang band sounds like these days; they might as well have chosen to give the prizes to Spirogyra and Violinksi.

Kerrang Awards: The shortlist

You've got to love the Kerrang Awards - the shortlist is packed with eyeliner and studded metal, but still manages to find space for The Muppets.

And, wonderfully, there's room on the villain of the year shortlist for Lou Reed. Clearly, Kerrang readers are not big fans of Welsh rugby. (Unless they're all still angry about the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration, but surely not?)

We're wishing Enter Shikari luck in the best album category, and then going off to snicker that things are so bad in international heavy pop that 30 Seconds To Mars are not just treated seriously, but acclaimed.

The shortlist in full:

BEST BRITISH NEWCOMER
While She Sleeps
Yashin
Fearless Vampire Killers
Don Broco
Hawk Eyes

BEST INTERNATIONAL NEWCOMER
Motionless In White
Tonight Alive
Falling In Reverse
Of Mice & Men
Reckless Love

BEST SINGLE
You Me At Six (featuring Oli Sykes) - Bite My Tongue
You Me At Six - No One Does It Better
Young Guns - Bones
Black Veil Brides - Rebel Love Song
Falling In Reverse - The Drug In Me Is You

BEST VIDEO
Falling In Reverse - The Drug In Me Is You
Mastodon - Curl Of The Burl
Motionless In White - Immaculate Misconception
Paramore - Monster
Bring Me The Horizon - Alligator Blood

BEST ALBUM
You Me At Six - Sinners Never Sleep
Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood Of Colour
Young Guns - Bones
Black Veil Brides - Set The World On Fire
Mastodon - The Hunter

BEST LIVE BAND presented by Rock Of Ages
You Me At Six
Black Veil Brides
Asking Alexandria
Enter Shikari
My Chemical Romance

BEST BRITISH BAND presented by Fender
You Me At Six
Bullet For My Valentine
Asking Alexandria
Lostprophets
Iron Maiden

BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND
30 Seconds To Mars
My Chemical Romance
Evanescence
A Day To Remember
letlive.

Announced on the day but not presented at the Awards ceremony:

BEST TV SHOW
The Big Bang Theory
The Walking Dead
Game Of Thrones
American Horror Story
Misfits

BEST VIDEO GAME
Skyrim
FIFA 12
Mass Effect 3
Gears Of War 3
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

BEST FILM
The Hunger Games
The Woman In Black
The Inbetweeners
The Muppets
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

BEST COMEDIAN
Greg Davies
Russell Howard
Tim Minchin
Noel Fielding
Bill Bailey

TWEETER OF THE YEAR
Danny Worsnop, Asking Alexandria
Jono Yates, Blitz Kids
Sean Smith, The Blackout
Hayley Williams, Paramore
Mark Hoppus, Blink-182

HOTTEST FEMALE
Hayley Williams, Paramore
Tay Jardine, We Are The In Crowd
Amy Lee, Evanescence
Lzzy Hale, Halestorm
Jenna McDougall, Tonight Alive

HOTTEST MALE
Ben Bruce, Asking Alexandria
Andy Biersack, Black Veil Brides
Ashley Purdy, Black Veil Brides
Alex Gaskarth, All Time Low
Matt Bellamy, Muse

VILLAIN OF THE YEAR
Justin Bieber
Simon Cowell
Ronnie Radke, Falling In Reverse
Lou Reed
One Direction

HERO OF THE YEAR
Ronnie Radke - Falling In Reverse
M. Shadows - Avenged Sevenfold
Jared Leto - 30 Seconds To Mars
Mario Balotelli - Manchester City
Rou Reynolds - Enter Shikari

BEST FESTIVAL
Download
Hevy Music Festival
Reading and Leeds
Slam Dunk
Hit The Deck

NME plummets again

Latest music magazine circulation figures are in, and - once again - they're grim for the NME, down below 30,000.

Here's the list, with change compared to the same period last year:

The Fly: 100,386 ; -7.2%
Kerrang! : 43,033 ; -2.2%
Mojo : 87,262 ; -4.8%
New Musical Express : 29,020 ; -14.3%
Q : 80,418 ; -10.1%
Top of the Pops : 98,030 ; -6.4%
Uncut : 66,004 ; -10.9%

In sheer number terms, the falling away of Q's audience is noteworthy, too. But look at the gap Kerrang has opened up over the NME (or, more accurately, has managed to hold onto) - K! now selling 50% more than the once impregnable NME. Putting on new readers would be a big ask, but surely something must be possible to quell the vanishing audience?

Kerrang hits 30; gets new editor

Considering it was only ever a spin-off from Sounds, you'd have to be a curmudgeon to not applaud Kerrang for reaching its 30th birthday.

That's nine years more than Sounds managed, you'll note.

At the same time as it edges into its fourth decade, the title is getting a new editor, Gamesmaster's James McMahon. James used to write for NME, where he had spells looking after new bands and features; he's returning to his first love to take over the big green eyeshade at Kerrang from Nicola Browne.

Browne: Bye bye, Bauer

Nichola Browne, who has been editor of Kerrang! for 18 months, is stepping down and leaving Bauer altogether.

Her editorship has been a pretty good time for K! - in the middle of 2009, it was selling 43,253 copies and a couple of thousand ahead of NME; by last month, Kerrang! was selling 44,013 - not a massive rise, but the gap with NME is now about 10,000, showing how well the title is doing compared with the market as a whole.

Retiring: Alan Lewis

A find farewell to Alan Lewis, a man who quietly worked his way through many of the UK's best-beloved and now-defunct music papers.

UK Press Gazette counts them all out:

Lewis started his career as a local newspaper sub before moving to Melody Maker in 1969 from where he went on to become the founder-editor of Black Music and Kerrang!, editor of Sounds, NME, No1 and Vox.

He was also instrumental in the launch of Loaded and Uncut, the former of which he acted as editor-in-chief, and had a hand in the development of Family History Monthly.

Lewis has been editing Record Collector magazine, which he has carefully positioned away from being a magazine solely about collecting circles of plastic; as a result, there's still a title to hand on. Ian McCann - a name whiskery NME readers will recognise as an equally solid pair of hands - will take up the editor's job when Lewis retires.

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Kerrang

While searching out something else today, I discovered this guide to bands making cameo appearances in Kerrang's Pandora strip:

Fluffy
Who were they: Skanked-out version of Lush, Select Magazine liked them. Used to perform in fetish bars before making it big, as if the Torture Garden crowd wants to hear anything other than “Pin Ups” on non-stop repeat play.
Where are they now: Somehow utterly vanished, although if you go to Wikipedia’s entry for the band you’re only two clicks away from a cartoon featuring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan drawn as children playing with a wooden vibrator. So that’s something.
Is this comic strip funny: I honestly have no idea what’s going on here. Or why Lauren Laverne is in panel five.

ABCs show NME continuing downwards tumble while K! picks up

Last night was the day all magazine editors dread, when the ABC publishes circulation figures and they discover how many people they've lost from their readership. It's a lot of waving for NME.

Krissi Murison has had a year to remake the magazine in her own image, and one major redesign. So, in sheer number terms, how is she doing?

In the summer 2009 figures, NME was selling 40,948. Now? 33,875.

On a positive note, that's only a 17% year-on-year drop in sales, which is better than the quarter or so vanishing during the later years of Conor McNicholas' reign.

Making things worse for NME, it can't even point to a general malaise. Nearest rival Kerrang is now selling 44,013 - which is up from 43,253 this time last year. Not a massive increase, but an increase nevertheless. It would be turning the knife to point out it's now over 10,000 copies ahead of NME.

Q is selling 89,450 copies monthly, a 10% drop year-on-year - last summer it was selling over 100,000.

Kerrang will pay you for your reckonings

I've often said that I'd want paying to listen to Kerrang Radio. And soon, that might happen.

They've come up with a scheme where listeners who rate unsigned bands (supplied by Slicethepie) will, indeed, get paid cash in return for their ears.

A music industry model where everyone gets paid is not to be sniffed at. You do wonder if you're offering cash for rating bands, are the raters fans getting rewarded for their insight, or farmers being paid to hit buttons?

Circulation update: The Q is dethroned

Q's surprisingly long reign as biggest-selling paid-for pop magazine has come to an end, with latest ABC circulation figures seeing it drop behind Mojo.

Mojo has managed a tiny uptick in its sales over the last six months, but really claimed its crown by virtue of declining more slowly than its stablemate: Mojo lost 2% (to 98,484) year-on-year, while Q is down 8% (94,811).

Classic Rock - the worthy-but-dull option - is the only title showing an increase over the last twelve months, up 1.5% (71,242).

Over at the weeklies, Kerrang has lost 21.3% of its readers over the last 12 months (41,125), but still manages to be ahead of NME. The NME is down to 38,486, having misplaced just over one-fifth of the readership during the last twelve months.

IPC will be hoping that Krissi Murison can turn things around fairly quickly - surely the title can't afford another year of losing one-out-of-every-five readers?

Folding magazines: Misery all round

So, this is how the Conor McNicholas era at the NME ends - not with a bang, but with a hacking cough and a death rattle.

When Conor took over the magazine in June 2002, circulation stood at 70,456. Today's ABC figures put the number of copies sold at 40,948. To be fair, though, there is still a weekly magazine being put out, and that in itself is something of an achievement.

Elsewhere in the music magazine sector, not only is NME behind Kerrang but - as that title's circulation falls - Kerrang has dropped behind Metal Hammer.

Q is still the most-purchased music title, but having lost 11.5% of its readers over the last twelve months, while Mojo has "only" misplaced 8.1% means that Q's lead over its stablemate is down to just 2,450 copies.

Kerrang Awards 2009: Or possibly 1999

You know why they have a newcomer prizes at the Kerrang awards? It's so you can double-check you're not, actually, looking at a list of winners from a decade ago.

I'm not sure if I can quite take seriously any prize-giving where Linkin Park are hailed as classic songwriters; much less one where there is a Hall Of Fame which retains a wing to praise Limp Bizkit.

The winners in full:

BEST BRITISH NEWCOMER: In Case Of Fire

BEST INTERNATIONAL NEWCOMER: The Gaslight Anthem

BEST SINGLE: The Prodigy - Omen

BEST VIDEO: Mastodon - Oblivion

CLASSIC SONGWRITER: Linkin Park

SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE: The Wildhearts

ICON: Alice In Chains

BEST ALBUM: Metallica - Death Magnetic

BEST LIVE BAND: Slipknot

INSPIRATION: Machine Head

HALL OF FAME: Limp Bizkit

BEST BRITISH BAND: Bullet For My Valentine

BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND: Slipknot

Someone at Bauer finally notices Kerrang problem

The decision to use Kerrang as a radio station brand for music that overlapped but went further with the sort of music the magazine writes about was always a curious one, and finally someone seems to have spotted it. MediaGuardian are reporting the Bauer are thinking of changing the name to stop, frankly, putting people off:

Travis Baxter, the managing director of Bauer's Big City network of stations, said the Kerrang! Birmingham station had a committed audience but he was looking at ways of expanding its appeal. A change of name is one of the options being considered, he added.

"People think it is heavy metal. There are risks and opportunities with the name but we don't want to throw away what we have got," Baxter said.

A name unattractive to a general audience linked to a magazine that isn't doing as well as it was. Yes, you wouldn't want to throw that away, would you?

Cancer Bats: "Up for" as in "eligble for"?

The Cancer Bats - no, you haven't missed anything - proudly tell their fans via their MySpace that they're in with a sniff of a major award:

CANCER BATS are up for 3 awards at this year's Kerrang! Awards.

- Best Live Band
- Best Album ('Hail Destroyer')
– Best International Band

This is a huge deal and we need you, the fans to vote vote vote!
Head over to: www.kerrangawards.com and vote for Bats as much as you can!!!

The curious fan who follows this instruction - and the link - might be surprised to discover that the shortlist for the awards isn't out for another month. So, yes, you could say they're up for the awards, but only in the same way that Coldplay and Emmy The Great are - because there's nothing to stop anyone writing any name they like into the form at this stage.

Rock magazine circulation: Goodbye, dear readers

The latest batch of ABC magazine circulation figures have been released, and comparing year-on-year makes grim reading - here's the key titles, with their current sales figures and, in brackets, what they were doing twelve months ago:

Kerrang! - 76,937 (85,377)
NME - 64,033 (73,008)
Q - 131,330 (140,282)
Mojo - 106,218 (114,183)
Uncut - 91,028 (93,678)

So, Kerrang has extended its lead over NME, but it's unlikely they'll be much in the mood for celebrating. And with space for magazines coming under ever tighter competition in the shops and stores of the UK, the number of chance purchasers are likely to dwindle further. There's not much love around for the pop papers today.

Kerrang picks up Big Brother presenter

Last week, Ofcom reduced the amount of new music Kerrang had to play on its Birmingham FM station. This week, Kerrang have announced that Kate Lawler is taking over the breakfast show from current host Ugly Phil.

Kate Lawler at breakfast, eh? Let's hope nobody remembers RI:SE.

Kerrang kranks up krumbly old tracks

Kerrang's Birmingham FM Radio station has won approval from Ofcom to reduce the amount of new music it plays in daytime from a half to a third of its output.

Rather winningly, the station requested the right to play more old music because, its audience gets bored by all the new music it plays. No, really [pdf]:

Pre-release airplay of new/unreleased material means that listeners to a specialist station like Kerrang! are familiar with tracks well before they are released and by the time they enter the mainstream sales chart they are passé. The increased flexibility afforded by the requested change will allow us to more accurately reflect the tastes of our audience.

Aha. So, the audience are so blase about hearing tracks a few weeks old, the only way to keep them interested is to play much, much older music.

Bizarrely, Ofcom let them get away with this, and agreed to their request.

Kerrang: Lostprophets still "best" British band

It'll come as something of a surprise to most people, but - according to the Kerrang Awards - Lostprophets are still the best band in Britain.

Say what you like about K!, but their awards are about the only rock music prize with a profile in the UK which doesn't shuffle the same winners as everyone else. Not a sniff for Amy Winehouse.

The winners in full, then:

Kerrang! Hall Of Fame: Judas Priest
Icon: Nine Inch Nails
International band: Panic At The Disco
British band: Lostprophets
Hard rock hero: Machine Head
Spirit of independence: Enter Shikari
Classic songwriter: Deftones
Best video: Fall Out Boy - This Ain't A Scence
Best album: Machine Head - The Blackening
Best single: 30 Seconds To Mars - The Kill
Best live band: Enter Shikari
Best international newcomer: Madina Lake
Best British newcomer: Gallows

We didn't say the winners were any better than at the NME awards, just different.

Incidentally, last year's Best British Newcomer was Bring Me The Horizon. Shortly before they disappeared over it.

[2006 Kerrang awards]

Reading lists

None of the pop papers have had a good time in the latest round of ABC circulation figures, with the best performers Uncut and Mojo being able to point to just mild circulation drops year-on-year.

Q still leads the pack, but it continues to lose readers: down to 130,179 now, and perhaps thinking that the decision to drop CD covermounts might have been a little hasty.

In the weeklies, both Kerrang and NME lost sales, but - as they declined at similar rates - K! remains the world's biggest selling rock-weekly, with 83,610 copies aginst 68,151. NME's circulation is starting to get dangerously close to that of largely obscure monthly Classic Rock.