The latest ABC circulation figures have been released for the period July to December 2008. On the face of it, the monthlies have done pretty well with mostly minor ups and downs. The exception being Q Magazine which had a major relaunch in the autumn and yet has shed a further 10,000 sales – nearly 10 per cent of its readership.
Two titles are in real trouble. Kerrang! lost another 8,000 sales, meaning that a third of its readership has jumped ship over 12 months. NME has been hit even harder over the last six months. 8,000 sales is one seventh of the January to July figure. It’s hard to see how either will survive as a print title for very much longer with this sort of performance.
Below is a list of eleven of the top titles. The bold figure is the July-December 2008 sales figure. The two figures in brackets are for January to June 2008 and July to December 2007 respectively. Terrorizer only publishes its numbers annually which is why there’s only a single bracketed figure.
Neither the Wire or Plan B publish their circulation through ABC.
Classic Rock 70,188 (66,632 / 67,399)
Kerrang! 52,272 (60,294 / 76,937)
Metal Hammer 50,269 (48,540 / 45,809)
Mixmag 30,159 (34,073 / 35,817)
Mojo 100,507 (106,367 / 106,218)
NME 48,459 (56,284 / 64,033)
Q 103,017 (113,174 / 131,330)
Rock Sound 20,011 (22,527 / 23,021)
Terrorizer 13,786 (14,952)
Uncut 87,069 (86,925 / 91,028)
Word 34,280 (33,775 / 33,217)
Music Musings and Miscellany 
good riddance to the mags on decline, all three are style over substance
I’ve never read Kerrang, so I can’t comment about that.
Just who reads Q has always baffled me. It seems to be a music magazine for people who don’t like music very much, its contents completely driven by whoever happens to be selling the most records at the time. The other monthlies all have a reasonably well defined target audience. Q just seems pointless.
As for NME, I’m long enough in the tooth to remember its heyday. Great writers and a focus that was well beyond the latest bunch of snotty herberts with guitars. That was a long time ago. Since the reign of Steve Sutherland it has been narrow-minded, irrelevant and poorly written. Today it’s just a collection of ignorant hackwork and lots of pictures. It simply epitomises everything that is wrong with the UK music industry. It should have been put out of its misery years ago.
hello i feel one way in which kerrang magazine could increase the circulation figures is by including the older generation in their magazine.This will allows that specific audience to identify with the magazine.I feel this because i found that the younger the audience the more likely the are to read online instead of buying a magazin (which causes a drop in circulation figures).So by including older people they will feel that the older generation will buy the magazine more than the younger.This could be tested by doing a one off special eddition to see the outcome.Thanks.
I hate mustard. and where is the circulation figures for smash hits man? I need it for courseworkkkkkkk !