New Music Magazine Enters Volatile Market
A new music magazine, a spin-off of the Channel 4 programme Popworld, is set to launch next month into an increasingly fragile market.
Popworld Pulp, to be published in association with publisher Brooklands Group, will be on sale at 19,000 retail outlets across the UK from April 11 with an initial print run of 130,000 copies, priced at £1.49.
The title is said to focus on new music and cater for a wide range of tastes. It will also provide live music reviews and feature user-generated content, tapping into Popworld‘s two existing websites to provide reader ratings and opinion.
The new entry is targeted at 16- to 24-year-olds, with Brooklands anticipating it will get slightly more male readers.
Brooklands Group publishing director Mark Elliott said the new magazine aimed to attract some of the 750,000 viewers that tune into Popworld every week by offering a broad range of music genres.
A multi-million pound integrated marketing campaign begins on Monday and almost 100,000 copies of a sample issue are being distributed at gigs across the UK.
Popworld Pulp will also be promoted in the Channel 4 and E4 weekly TV show and on digital music websites, posters at music venues and on radio.
In addition banner ads will appear on a number of music websites and music portals. Radio ads will also play on XFM from two weeks from the launch date.
Darren Styles, chief executive of Brooklands Group, said: “How anybody under the age of 25 consumes music and the music media has changed profoundly in the past few years – and we believe that the Popworld brand has the ability to move to the centre of the zeitgeist, combining uniquely a free-to-air, terrestrial television programme, a significant online presence, live events and – shortly – an accessible, high profile news-stand presence.
“For our part, this will be the most developed product we’ll ever have launched – and one of the most exciting – and I believe we will surprise and delight the market in roughly equal measure.”
At the most recent consumer ABCs, a mixed bag of results were revealed. Leading titles like NME, Q and Mojo saw year on year circulation slumps. Weekly title NME dropped around 5% from its total year on year, whilst other IPC brand, the monthly Uncut, shed almost 15%. The titles now command circulations of around 73,000 and 94,000 respectively.
Market leader, Emap’s monthly Q, saw a year on year decline of almost 17% leaving its total figure at a little over 140,000, whilst Emap’s monthly Mojo shed more than 5% from its final figure (see ABC Results Jul-Dec 2006:Q Mag Remains King Of Music Sector Despite Circulation Decline).
Brooklands Group: www.brooklandsgroup.com Channel 4: www.channel4.com