Tuesday 26th May: UK music magazines fight to survive the coronavirus shutdown

May 26, 2020

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

Without gigs and festivals the music events advertising that sustained many free music publications has disappeared. Free titles, normally available at music venues and bars, have been particularly hard hit. The threat of closure hanging over Bauer title Qshow biggers titles are not immune.

Douglas McCabe, of Enders Analysis, says music magazines have “been on the edge of sustainability” for a long time as the familiar story of falling print ad sales and online competition have bitten. The silver lining is around niche content and deepening audience relationships - working with readers as part of 'our clan', not customers.

Audible, spending money to commission original podcasts for some time, but is not looking to celebrity hosts and single-show payment options to broaden its audience reach and compete better against Spotify.

Independent media newsletter Study Hall has written a Patreon post based on a Tweet thread outlining why we are seeing so many media lay offs at the moment and how subscriptions are the answer.

Brand consultant Mimi Turner, ex-LadBible, writes that marketers would be wrong to ignore print ROI, but that publishers need to innovate around reader consumption trends.

Podcast:

This week, we spoke to Ella Dolphin, CEO of the Stylist Group. She talked about the acceleration of the title’s plans to adopt a reader revenue model as the free print magazine distribution was put on hold. how that has affected the team’s workflow, and what the focus will look like for the group post-pandemic.