NME and Kerrang! fight it out as music market heats up

by Michael Byrne, Brand Republic 16-Feb-06, 12:25

LONDON - The battle between the weekly rock magazines has reignited as NME and Kerrang! almost tie on sales, with the IPC music weekly putting on 4.3% over a six-month period to record a circulation of 76,792, while Kerrang! piled on a whopping 18% to hit 76,165.

Kerrang!'s closing in on NME in the ABC figures for July-December 2005 comes despite a redesign of the IPC title in September. With just a little more than 600 copies between the two and Kerrang!'s impressive 23.2% year-on-year increase in circulation, the rivalry between the two remaining weekly titles seems certain to continue.

In the monthly market, Emap's Q remains the market leader at 168,547, a period increase of 5.2%. Sister Emap title Mojo was up 5.2% to 120,530, retaining its lead over IPC's music and movies magazine Uncut, which has stabilised at 110,052, up just 37 copies up on its January-June 2005 figure.

Future's music monthlies Classic Rock and Metal Hammer also fared well, increasing 12.8% to 50,027 and 9.5% to 44,047 respectively.

Word, Development Hell's foray into the music monthly arena, recorded a solid 22.1% year-on-year increase to 34,753, a period-on-period rise of 4.1%, but still lags far behind its rivals. Mixmag, the dance title bought by Development Hell from Emap in November, sold 42,234 copies, a fall of 9.1%, further illustrating the slow death of the clubbing magazine scene, with Future's DJ languishing on 11,535, down 6.4% year on year.

The film monthlies were also down, despite the trailing of blockbusters such as 'King Kong' and 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. Emap's Empire racked up 190,224 sales, a decrease of 7.6%, while rival Future's Total Film dropped 9.9% to 90,642.

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