July-December 1997: Music Sector
The biggest developments in the music magazine sector year on year perhaps surprisingly fell in the ‘teeny-bopper’ area of Smash Hits and Top Of The Pops magazines. Both of these titles showed a dramatic circulation increase compared with ABC figures from July-Dec 1996.
ABC Comparisons, Jul-Dec 1996 – Jul-Dec 1997
| Title | Jul 96 – Dec 96 | Jul 97 – Dec 97 | Actual Change | % Change |
| Classic FM – The Magazine | 38947 | 43344 | 4397 | 11.29 |
| Face | 113028 | 100744 | -12284 | -10.87 |
| Future Music | 26020 | 28753 | 2733 | 10.50 |
| Guitarist | n/a | 28056 | n/a | n/a |
| Hip Hop Connection | n/a | 9826 | n/a | n/a |
| Kerrang! | 43121 | 41535 | -1586 | -3.68 |
| Melody Maker | 46895 | 42105 | -4790 | -10.21 |
| Metal Hammer | 34757 | 38448 | 3691 | 10.62 |
| Mixmag | 88160 | 92516 | 4356 | 4.94 |
| Mojo | 64589 | 70428 | 5839 | 9.04 |
| Muzik | 50563 | 40366 | -10197 | -20.17 |
| New Musical Express | 111211 | 100093 | -11118 | -10.00 |
| Q | 212607 | 201979 | -10628 | -5.00 |
| Select | 106648 | 86474 | -20174 | -18.92 |
| Smash Hits | 268685 | 434525 | 165840 | 61.72 |
| Top Of The Pops | 292824 | 500963 | 208139 | 71.08 |
| Total Guitar | 42647 | 45007 | 2360 | 5.53 |
| Uncut | n/a | 33475 | n/a | n/a |
| Vox | 79882 | 55042 | -24840 | -31.10 |
Top Of The Pops magazine increased its circulation by 71% taking it to just over 500,000, the greatest circulation figure out of all the titles in this sector. Similarly, Smash Hits which now has the second biggest market share (23%) increased its circulation by 62% taking it to just over 434,000.
The biggest failures in the music sector last year were the slightly ‘cooler’ side of middle-of-the-road titles Vox and Select. Vox showed the greatest drop of just under 25,000 copies taking its circulation to 55,000, with a market share of around 3%. Select‘s circulation dropped just under 19% year on year to 86,000.
Specialist dance mag Muzik also suffered a loss of circulation, down just over 20% to 40,000 copies. It has a market share from the titles covered here of around 2%.
This share is taken across only the titles displayed here.
Hip-Hop Connection, a newcomer to the music sector, achieved a first ABC figure of 9,286.