No Rock And Roll Fun

AN UNORDERED Q FOR THE EXIT?: A whole new set of magazine circulation figures have arrived, and things don't look good for the increasingly rudderless Q, down 10 per cent over the year and on its third editor in two years. Felix Dennis is rumoured to be considering bringing Maxim Blender to the UK, which can only do further harm to a title which seems to be uncertain of who its writing for and what its writing about. The NME had a curatey eggy one per cent drop year-on-year, which while not an absolute disaster will be disappointing after twelve months of frenzied activity, relaunches and promotion. The comfort for Kings' Reach Tower will be the continued roll back of the pure rock competition - NME is at 72,557, while Kerrang dropped nearly a fifth over the year to 69,961. The dance magazine market is drying out faster than Diana Ross on D-wing, with remaining titles Mixmag off about 16 per cent to just above 50,000; DJ dropped ten percent and now manages to sell a scant 14,492 issues every month.

Uncut continues to thrive - now selling over 110,000 every issue while Mojo is also up slightly at about 104,000 each month, proving you can't go wrong with endless features about Bob Dylan. Over in the boobies and men-with-spikes-in-their-head sector, FHM, Maxim and Loaded are all down on where they were this time last year, but their sales drop seems to have steadied by the end of 2003. After a long period of ailing, Arena seems to be storming back, sales rising by over a quarter; Jack seems to have pulled itself off the abyss for a while, as the new format (and embrace of near naked ladies) has boosted sales by 17 per cent. In the lady arena, Marie Claire's decision to try and wean itself off covermounted gifts seems to have lead to readers deciding to wean themselves of Marie Claire - about ten per cent of their readers have turned their back.