Why there is a decrease in ABCs of Music Magazines?..

The research on ABC figures showed a dramatic drop in 2012 and 2013 for the music magazines so I decided to find out the reasons for that.

"As someone who works at the Guardian, I understand the concept of ‘managed decline’ in circulation figures and the need for constantly improving your product to help boost those figures. Whilst the Guardian and the like are adding new products to their publications. most big publishing houses have focused on diversification of revenues rather than developing or improving their printed product. With that, the falling circulation figures for paid-for music publications are unsurprising.

The reason why print magazine circulations are tumbling is because they don’t know who their audience is. Access to music is easier than at any other time in history. The mainstream (the youth in particular), spend their time with Youtube or the Boiler Room, they don’t need to be able to read, they only need to search.  With the increasing abundance of handheld devices and (more importantly) mobile internet access, even that last bastion of print publication reading opportunity has rapidly eroded. 

But the audience is there and if you find your niche, you will find your audience. This isn’t to say that NME or Q should totally change tact and start putting Romare or Sun Ra Arkestra on their covers, but they should stop playing it safe and experiment a little (the list of NME covers from this year makes pretty depressing reading).You cannot sustain an audience when you ultimately don’t have an audience, or you’re focusing on an audience that is either dying (literally) or likely to be swayed by a free alternative somewhere else.

 So to come to a point, and to address the question ‘is there a future for paid-for print music magazines?’ I think the answer is yes, but not in their current form – either in terms of their editorial content or their distribution model."  

So, after all, the main problem of the magazines is that they are so keen on expansion of their product so to interest more audience, that in fact, they lose more. Also, with technologies, the new opportunities are coming and more and more people use online versions rather than buying printed product. And most important, some of the magazine prefer to ignore these facts rather than keep pace with time and increase the numbers of readers and so the circulation figures. 

The source of information: 

www.untitledmagazineexperiment.com

"The future of music journalism and music 

magazines and making a living" by Gareth Main