Music magazine sector recedes as Q's decline continues

by Alex Donohue, Brand Republic 16-Aug-07, 13:20

LONDON - All major monthly and weekly UK music magazines have posted disappointing results in the latest ABC figures, with Emap's Q and Kerrang falling, along with IPC's NME and Uncut.

Monthly rock title Q was down 7.2% for the January-June period to 130,179, and has fallen by 17.7% year on year, to cap a disappointing 12 months for the title. However, it has retained its status as the UK music title with the highest circulation.

Meanwhile, Q's weekly sister magazine Kerrang!, which posted a record circulation figure last time around of 85,377, has halted its impressive period-on-period growth by dropping 2.1% to 83,610 for January-June, but overall the title is up 4.3% year on year.

Kerrang! remains comfortably ahead of IPC's NME in the weekly music magazine market, with Conor McNicholas' title sliding 6.7% for the period to 68,151, to round off a 8.2% fall year on year.

The film sector has remained largely stable for the period, with Emap's Empire rising 2% to 179,373 to cap a 2.1% increase year on year. Future's Total Film, which dropped by a marginal 0.5% to 85,616, fell 5.9% year on year.

Emap's retro rock monthly Mojo also dropped by 1.9% to 112,037, and has fallen 8% year on year.

IPC's film and music title Uncut, which marked its 10th anniversary in June, has fallen 8.3% to 85,884 and is down 3.2% year on year. However, the title has managed to stem an alarming circulation fall, after it dropped by 19.4% for the same period in 2006.

The results for the major music titles have painted a discouraging picture for the sector, but a small number of specialist titles have posted modest circulation growth for the period and there have been a handful of titles that have bucked the trend.

Future Publishing's Classic Rock has risen 7.2% for the period to 67,241, and by a substantial 20% year on year. Meanwhile, the publisher's sister title Metal Hammer edged up 0.3% to 49,143 and by 8.3% over the last 12 months, to close ground on its rivals.