Thursday, August 17, 2006

KERRANG OVERTAKES NME AGAIN

Back when NME retook its 'biggest selling rock weekly' crown from Kerrang, after a short period at number two, Kerrang's spokesperson suggested this was just the loss of floating metal fans disappearing as the genre became less trendy again.

With the news that the pair have swapped again, EMAP aren't suggesting they've tempted back the fickle floating metalheads, but instead pointing to the powers of cross-promotion. However, it's worth noting that Classic Rock and Metal Hammer both posted strong increases without the need for the launch of any television programmes, so the chances are a good portion of the current market is responding to the joys of girlfriend-free rock rather than the existence of an FM radio station in Birmingham.

Kerrang is now selling just over 80,000 copies an issue, while the NME has slipped back to 74,000-ish.

IPC aren't even prepared to admit there's any sort of circulation battle between the two titles:

The NME publishing director, Paul Cheal, said that the two magazines were not rivals as they had very little crossover in readership or advertising.

And, certainly, Kerrang has shown very little interest in running features on the tenth anniversary of Knebworth or helping Lily Allen's PRise to to fame. We're not saying that like it's a bad thing, either.

Elsewhere in the music magazine market, Q remains the sector leader, but has lost another six per cent of their readership, although the tears at EMAP will be balanced by the growth of Mojo's sale. The Word nudges over 35,000, and freebie The Fly sees a small increase.

Uncut, meanwhile, has tanked somewhat, but they're pointing out that they've had a relaunch which hasn't been factored in there.

The top ten in full:

1: Q 158,271 (-6.1%)
2: Mojo 121,746 (1.0%)
3: The Fly 109,734 (1.5%)
4: Uncut 88,756 (-19.4%)
5: Kerrang! 80,186 (5.3%)
6: New Musical Express 74,206 (-3.4%)
7: Classic Rock 56,037 (12.0%)
8: Metal Hammer 45,359 (3.0%)
9: Mixmag 41,757 (-1.1%)
10: Word 35,142 (1.1%)


8 comments:

kelvin newman said...

it's the girls that are helping kerrang, more girls read it than blokes now, which prob in a weird sorta way has cost sneak and smash hits

Anonymous said...

Is The Fly not free? does that possibly make it count a little less??

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

The main purpose of the ABC figures is to help advertisers decide where to spend their budgets (it's not all about whacking out the size on the table) so The Fly's figures are instructional.

However, I once took home somewhere in the region of 60 copies of Liverpool's Groove magazine because of its tasty Tim Burgess cover, so I suspect the proportion of readers-to-copies is less pleasing when you're looking at the freebies...

Anonymous said...

Uncut has crashed precisely because of it's relaunch. It used to be good, but now it's completely shite. It's somehow morphed into Q. I gave up after the second new-look issue. The first included a retrospective look at Tim Burgess' haircuts through the years. While the second had a point/counterpoint debate between Paul Heaton and Danny fucking MacNamara about whether you need to suffer for your art. I know i've certainly suffered for their art over the years.

Pierre said...

How do you explain this then?

http://www.nme.com/news/nme/23973

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Because the ABC figures report two sets of statistics: they compare period-on-period, and year-on-year. Year on year, the NME is selling more than it was; period-on-period, it's selling fewer.

Neither the year-on-year nor period-on-period figures can be reworked, though, to make the NME sell more than Kerrang at the moment.

I'm reminded of the old Spitting Image spoof of Call My Bluff, where representatives of the parties attempted to explain 'second place in a bye-election'.

(Actually, as it says, the NME isn't doing badly considering...)

Anonymous said...

From IPC's press release:

"Iconic music title NME delivers a weekly sale of 74,206, up 0.8% on the year. The NME brand continues to go from strength-to-strength across a number of platforms."

I wouldn't be breaking out the champagne over a 0.8% increase.

"[Uncut] has delivered an ABC of 88,756, reflecting the highly competitive nature of the category."

Translation: we're haemorrhaging sales.

Chris Brown said...

Those "related stories" on the NME site are a bit rum, aren't they?

Anyway, how do they know how many copies of The Fly are actually gettng picked up?

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