There have already been signs that print media isn’t as lucrative as it used to be, particularly with the ailing state of music street press and international music magazines, but now comes another major warning sign of the times.
The online edition of one of Britian’s longest running music publications will no longer be providing their fix of music coverage for free. Well, at least for the time being, as NME.com is trialling a new paywall on their website for the first time ever this month, as Music Week reports.
The beta trial of the locked content is being used by the music magazine’s publishers, IPC, to gauge the interest for NME‘s online arm’s 8 million unique monthly users in paying for content alongside the news, videos, reviews, and blogs it provides daily.
Instead of locking off the entire website however, NME will be trialling the paywall on certain content of their website, namely in an additional piece of content.
The move is likely spurred on – as previously reported – by the alarming drop in circulation of the weekly music publication in recent months. The latest figures show NME experiencing a drop in circulation from 23,049 at the end of December 2012 – capping NME‘s 60th Anniversary – to 20,011 by the end of June 2013; a 13.2% drop. while the year-on-year decline is marked at 16.4%.
That’s just a sliver of NME (and print media)’s 90s heyday, where data shows that the weekly magazine was enjoying a circulation of 118,257. The move is also spurred on by the alarming drop in circulation of the weekly music publication in recent months…
It’s not an isolated drop either, with NME‘s parent publisher IPC media also struggling with the circulation of its other music mag, Uncut, which also experienced a drop of 8.8%, from an average weekly figure of 62,361 at the end of December 2012 to 56,894 at the end of June 2013; a drop of 9.7% in terms of year-on-year.
To combat the drop, NME.com will make the online version of their current cover feautre only accessible through a payment charge (of UK 69p), while the rest of the website will remain free for viewing, while exclusive ‘online extras’ will also be offered to those who front up the money to view them online, including the digital editions available for tablets through iTunes and Amazon.
IPC’s suffering NME and Uncut sales are mirrored by rival UK publisher, Bauer Media, which prints long-running publications Q Magazine, Mojo, and hard rock bible Kerrang!, all of which have experienced drops in circulation.
Mojo and Q saw their readership drop by 5.2% and 4.1% respectively, while Kerrang! fared slightly better with a 2.5% drop in its circulation, going from an average 38,556 copies from December 2012 to 37,603 copies in June this year, a 6.5% year-on-year drop.
The NME paywall implementation will be no surprise to Australian consumers, who have seen newspaper dailies from both Fairfax and News Ltd implement paid sections of their respective publications through a number of different payment models.
There’s already been other warning signs that print media is suffering, with the last 12 months showing a significant downturn in music street press – including Rave ceasing operations after 21 years of publication, regional music press Reverb shutting up shop under mounting debts. Then The Music Network announced ‘print is dead’ while ceasing its long running-music print publication, while Triple J Magazine staff were made redundant as its publisher, News Custom Publishing – part of the News Limited group – decided to ‘re-centralise’ to its Sydney headquarters, leaving the national youth broadcaster to put together the magazine itself as it moves to annual editions of the magazine.
All sobering indications that most music fans no longer leaf through the pages of their favourite mag to get their fix but are instead rifling through bookmarks with their mouse and keyboard.
