Allan Jones leaves Uncut

Allan Jones - launch editor of Uncut - is leaving the job.

Yes, launch editor.

Yes, it's been publishing now for 17 years.

Jones' success at Uncut is all the more of a triumph as it launched at something of a torrid time for the IPC stable (okay, it's always a torrid time at IPC; their clocks are actually set to Greenwich Torrid Time) as the other monthly music title, Vox, was seeing its readership move from 'dipping' to 'diving' and was just about to have its short, eight-year life snuffed out. To launch into such a market, and to manage to keep a magazine alive for 17 years, is an amazing piece of work.

In 2007, Jones explained the reasoning behind Uncut to the UK Press Gazette:

The idea for Uncut came from my own disenchantment about what I was doing with Melody Maker. There was a publishing initiative to make the audience younger; I was getting older and they wanted to take the readers further away from me. It seemed like an impassable bridge.

Given what happened to MM, and what happened to Uncut, it might seem Jones had more sense than many people at IPC at the time.

The question, though, is what future there is for Uncut - it hasn't been immune from the general droop in music magazine sales, and is now selling something around half of its 2004 peak sale. Can a new editor - John Mulvey - bring some of the passion, and some of the sales back?