Feature: The Sound Of Mouse Clicks
When the NME advertised for “hip young gunslingers” in 1976, its challenge was to keep up with the latest music phenomenon, punk. Nearly 25 years later the biggest challenge for the music press is not the music it reviews but how those reviews reach the readers.
Before the internet revolution, UK magazines were doing well in ABC figures, helped by the success of home-grown, guitar based bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp in the mid-90s. But as the decade wore on, sales fell off.
The music industry and the internet are natural partners. Websites can not only review music, they can play audio and video clips or even live concerts, post the latest gossip instantaneously, allow interactivity with musicians or other fans through online chat rooms and sell merchandise and downloads. Usage of the medium has more than doubled since 1997 with last year’s figures showing that a quarter of the UK population had internet access, with many users buying music online as well as reading about it. During the same period, the circulation of music print titles has fallen (see Latest ABCs Show Few Highlights For Music Sector), particularly in titles aimed at younger people, who use the internet more than average (see
New media could prove to be the music press’s saviour. NME,Q and now Melody Maker (see Melody Maker To Launch On The Internet) all have an online presence which is backed by the publishers (see NME Offers Free Internet Access And Email). In the case of NME, ABC circulations for the print title have fallen from 106,000 in 1997 to 76,000 in 1999, but ABCE circulations for www.nme.com have risen from 1 million page impressions a month in 1997 to 8 million in 1999.
The NME shows how the strength of a well-established brand can be carried across different media. The prospect of interactive television and WAP technology promises to blur boundaries, and music advertising and editorial appears to be a prime candidate for cross-media arrangements.
Emap could be leading the charge of cross-media marketing in music. The last decade has seen it manouevre itself into a strong position for this, with the purchase of interactive cable TV music channel The Box, the growth of radio brands such as Kiss and the development of its music magazine portfolio which includes Smash Hits, Mixmag and Mojo.
The Smash Hits brand, for example, is to form part of a new venture with Channel 4 (see EMAP And Channel 4 Unite In Digital Venture), marketing products and services for young people. The project will include a website combining the content of Emap youth magazines and Channel 4 teen soaps and links to Channel 4’s T4 and its forthcoming digital entertainment channel E4.
Emap is also developing an online music portal, which will bring together its music magazine and radio brands including Kiss, Select and Mixmag. Each brand will have a separate area and URL within the site. Future possibilities for platforms such as interactive digital television and WAP are also being explored.
Jerry Perkins, managing director of Emap Digital Music, is organising the project. He insists that Emap’s investment in music websites at a time of falling ABC’s for music print titles is “not defensive.” He continues: “The music press is cyclical, and at the moment its pretty dull, which makes it hard to get big sales.”
Perkins denies that the new media forms of Emap brands are aiming to replace the print versions. “There’s very little [print] readership for hard news – people are looking for a monthly entertainment package. The online versions enable us to explore new areas and in our view the two are very complementary.”
Emap Digital is looking for an autumn launch of the project, the name of which is currently “under wraps”. Initially it will seek music-based advertising, but Jerry Perkins insists that “the most important factor at first will be to build up a valuable audience who keep coming back.”
Once this is established, cross-media marketing offers far more opportunities for ad revenue than print alone. E-commerce partnerships, digital music downloads and marketing services are all possibilities open to the Emap venture, and advertisers will also be given the opportunity to run campaigns or sponsorship deals on all the platforms a brand appears on. Music to shareholders’ ears, no doubt.