Music Press History

Music Press History

1950

In the mid 1950’s NME was introduced and was considered to be a magazine for youths. NME was one of the only magazines that really kept up to date with the latest music along with another magazine called ‘melody maker’. The content of 'Melody Maker' was mainly charts singles and the latests gig listings. 

1970

A music magazine named ‘inkies’ released articles containing interviews on the latest artist. The magazine didn’t just focus on big mainstream artists but it also featured independent labels. Near the end of the 1970’s it started covering information on indie music as it was just starting to become popular. NME started to focus on punk as it slowly became a very popular genre. Mid-way through the 70’s NME started including and writing about political issues. In the late 1970’s readers of NME were declining, this was because it was no longer writing about “normal” bands. It was starting to become all about politics and people didn’t like that.

2015

In the modern day with the internet, people now have the ability to do a lot more with music. On the 18^th September 2015 a big music magazine producer ‘NME’ decided to make their magazines free. The company was founded in 1952 and has dropped to 15,000, but the free version's initial print run is 300,000. It is obvious that the sale of music magazines is dangerously low. This is because of the fact that now people can search up all about their favourite artists. They can also listen to their artist’s music for free. This means that there is less need to purchase a magazine to find out about news. To try and solve this problem ‘NME’ will give out their magazines at places like colleges and music festivals to get younger people interested again.

This problem is not just occurring or ‘NME’ but also for another well-known music mag called ‘Q’. Its monthly sales are down to 50,000 copies a month compared to its monthly figures of 200,000 in the nineties

NME- New Music Express

At NME's peak it sold 750,000 copies. In July 2015, its figures shrunk to 15,000. Just recently in September the magazine become free. Back in 1990 the music magazines became very stylish and were trendy to read. 

The launch of video technology launched with channels like MTV. This created a completely new market just for music videos. Even a small band could make a lot of money by creating a good quality video. Youtube launched in 2005 which is very heavenly used to this day for finding new music through watching different music videos. Today digital technology has exploded and changed the industry and the behavior of the audience. 

People can find out about new artists or learn more about their favorite artists through the internet. This also allows people to find the latest news and release dates almost instantly. This removes the need to purchase a magazine to find out the information.

To keep music magazines printing, they needed content that was exclusive and that could be found on the internet. This includes ; freebies, exclusive interviews, charts, fashion of artists, exclusive images, signed collectible items, souvenirs, competitions and gossip.