After 66 years of outstanding rock media coverage, the iconic weekly music magazine has announced it will cease to exist in its iconic print format.
NME magazine has championed some of the biggest artists and bands to grace the rock scene and at its prime enjoyed a peak readership of a staggering 306,000 in 1964.
Although the fall of such a giant in the music media industry is disappointing, it is not unexpected. Circulation of the magazine has been consistently in decline since the arrival of the internet and social media, perhaps because readers are now adopting a more immediate form of news ingestion.
Regardless that the weekly issue was being practically thrown at readers for free, the print edition of the UK's leading music magazine proved to be an unsustainable model in today's world of music journalism.
NME's move to free print editions was a phenomenal decision to make for the magazine in 2015, allowing them to propel their readership with full force towards their online platform. A place that they will now call home.
The current climate for print magazines is arid, they are facing sky-high production costs and a treacherous advertising market. With publications deciding to focus on their digital platforms, they are maximizing a core focus towards the sphere in which most of their readers will naturally be congregating.
New Musical Express remains a huge UK brand and will uphold respect from its regular readers regardless of the medium in which is dispends its talent journalists musical insight, however, there was certainly something nostalgic about running to the corner shop for some milk and returning with that soft cover of authentic British music clenched in your fist.
We are going to miss you NME...
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