NME For Free

Most media observers suggest it’s the last throw of the dice for 63-year-old paper, which has suffered a decade of falling sales and seen its circulation plunge to 15,000.

The most recent ABC figures showed that the print edition of the paper had a drop of 23 percent year-on-year, falling from 18,184 in December 2013 to 15,384 at the end of 2014. In what’s presumably a bid to appeal to a wider audience, the New Musical Express – to use its original name – will branch out into new topics such as fashion, film, television, politics, gaming and technology.

From September, the move – which has been rumoured for months – will see 300,000 copies of the magazine distributed free of charge in the hope it will boost advertising revenue and ensure its continued survival in print as well as online. “We’re not viewing it as the move that will save NME, it is more that over the years NME has been on the front foot in terms of innovation,” said NME editor Mike Williams. “We launched NME.com in the mid-90s when there weren’t many websites out there, certainly not music websites, so it’s always been about evolution. It’s no secret that our circulation has been in decline for a long time.” Life hasn’t always been easy for NME.

The early editions published in 1952 (and costing sixpence) didn’t sell well, and founder Maurice Kinn had to borrow money from his mother-in-law to keep the paper afloat. It’s not the only magazine to be in trouble. “Lads mags” such as Nuts and Loaded have both closed in the last year.

Media industry analyst Douglas McCabe described NME’s move as “quite extraordinary.”

“My instinct is to feel quite concerned about it,” he said. “When you look at other magazines that have gone free, like Time Out, the reason they’ve been a great success was because they didn’t have to adapt very much. “It was a magazine that readers already understood and already had broad cultural interest – whereas NME will have to work very hard to move away from becoming a niche interest title.”