End of an era. For reals.
Feb. 2nd, 2006 10:09 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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poptimistsEmap to close Smash Hits magazine after 28 years
by Jennifer Whitehead Brand Republic 2 Feb 2006
Smash Hits: brand will live on
LONDON - Emap is to close Smash Hits magazine after 28 years, succumbing to the trend of young readers deserting magazines to spend time online and their money on mobile phone content.
In the last set of circulation figures, published by the ABC in August 2005, Smash Hits reported a drop of 4.4% to report sales of just over 120,000 copies an issue -- hundreds of thousands of copies fewer than it sold in its heyday in the late 1980s.
Smash Hits will live on as a brand in the form of a music television channel, which is available on cable and satellite, and a digital radio station, which launched on Freeview in 2002. The last issue of the magazine will appear on February 13.
As well as being the music and entertainment bible for a generation of teenagers, the magazine famously counts a number of celebrities among its former staff. These include Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant, who once boasted of having introduced the phrase "pur-lease" to the magazine, and the 'X Factor' host Kate Thornton.
The magazine was founded in 1978 by Nick Logan, who had previously edited the NME. Logan went on to create 80s fashion bible The Face.
Things are tough in the market for teenage publications. The Sunday Times is considering closing its children's supplement The Funday Times, while Hachette Filipacchi abandoned ElleGirl magazine after four years because of its dwindling circulation.
In the August 2005 ABCs, not one of the teenage-targeted magazines recorded a rise in circulation.
Publishers blame a variety of factors for the desertion of readers, including more diverse tastes in music and fewer exciting stars, and more competition for pocket money as teens turn their mobile phones for entertainment.
by Jennifer Whitehead Brand Republic 2 Feb 2006
Smash Hits: brand will live on
LONDON - Emap is to close Smash Hits magazine after 28 years, succumbing to the trend of young readers deserting magazines to spend time online and their money on mobile phone content.
In the last set of circulation figures, published by the ABC in August 2005, Smash Hits reported a drop of 4.4% to report sales of just over 120,000 copies an issue -- hundreds of thousands of copies fewer than it sold in its heyday in the late 1980s.
Smash Hits will live on as a brand in the form of a music television channel, which is available on cable and satellite, and a digital radio station, which launched on Freeview in 2002. The last issue of the magazine will appear on February 13.
As well as being the music and entertainment bible for a generation of teenagers, the magazine famously counts a number of celebrities among its former staff. These include Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant, who once boasted of having introduced the phrase "pur-lease" to the magazine, and the 'X Factor' host Kate Thornton.
The magazine was founded in 1978 by Nick Logan, who had previously edited the NME. Logan went on to create 80s fashion bible The Face.
Things are tough in the market for teenage publications. The Sunday Times is considering closing its children's supplement The Funday Times, while Hachette Filipacchi abandoned ElleGirl magazine after four years because of its dwindling circulation.
In the August 2005 ABCs, not one of the teenage-targeted magazines recorded a rise in circulation.
Publishers blame a variety of factors for the desertion of readers, including more diverse tastes in music and fewer exciting stars, and more competition for pocket money as teens turn their mobile phones for entertainment.
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:30 am (UTC)There was a thing in the paper yesterday about The Dandy bringing in celebrity guests (!) into the comic (!) as characters (!) e.g. Chris Moyles and Kim and Aggie. Presumably in a bid to 'sex it up'.
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:31 am (UTC)The only people that seemed to advertise in Ver Hits in its latter days were Jamster types.
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:34 am (UTC)The vicious cycle of 'mobile phone content'
NME still retains some semblance of cool, I think; does it still have its old fashioned punk-mthos, about it? Unfortunately. Happy to say I've never bought a copy. (Nor a copy of Smash Hits, mind you).
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-02-10 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 10:28 am (UTC)Also, most teens these days have part time jobs anyway, not pocket money? i.e. more disposable income, not a little spread thinly (on 'mobile phone content').
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:59 am (UTC)The batteries have run out tho.
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Date: 2006-02-02 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 11:08 am (UTC)But in its heyday (mid 80s I guess) it was one of the greatest magazines this country ever published.
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Date: 2006-02-02 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-10 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 11:17 am (UTC)J17 folded about 5/6 years ago. As for the teen market demographic, my extensive interning experience (spent writing QUIZES such as 'Who's your OC mate match?"!) shows that Sugar is going down, (down in an earlier round), since CosmoGirl! and TeenVogue are cannibalising the demographics. A resurgent Bliss is hanging on pretty well since the move to smaller-sizing, while the babyHeat style of Sneak et al is also squeezing the monthlies through weekly 'look, a celebrity' content. Continual free gifts and a shift from monthly to 3-weekly cycles is the latest weapon in the hunt for the kidz cash.
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Date: 2006-02-02 11:48 am (UTC)Cool!
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Date: 2006-02-02 11:47 am (UTC)I guess nowadays you have the preteen It's Hot type stuff and then the More! end of the market for yer older lasses.
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Date: 2006-02-02 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 02:33 pm (UTC)You can only buy specialist music magazines if they exist for the genre you like, and without Smash Hits there are few for pop. Probably only TOTP could really be called a pop mag now, the others like TV Hits (if that still exists?) were always into other teenage things as well so the lack of good mainstream pop stars wouldn't affect them.
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Date: 2006-02-02 02:42 pm (UTC)The awful fate of SH actually takes us back to Tuesday's pop-or-not discussions: SH in the 80s worked cos it assumed everything in the charts, and quite a lot outside, was POP and also treated all of it in quite a similar fashion, with demented irreverence. At some point it stopped doing this: or maybe at some point publicists stopped letting their more 'credible' charges near Smash Hits, the strain between "the pop charts" and what was actually in them got too great.
Also at some point - maybe the same point - boys stopped reading Smash Hits.
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Date: 2006-02-02 02:50 pm (UTC)I loved the way that Smash Hits when I read it basically ridiculed anything that wasn't pop. I'm sure I would not be anything like as obsessed with pop music if I hadn't read SH so relgiously in my formative yrs.
"the day the music died"
Date: 2006-02-02 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 12:00 pm (UTC)PLASTIC BERTRAND was the first cover star!
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Date: 2006-02-02 12:16 pm (UTC)hkm
paging janet aitchison aged 5-and-a-half!!
Date: 2006-02-02 12:21 pm (UTC)Re: paging janet aitchison aged 5-and-a-half!!
Date: 2006-02-02 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 01:55 pm (UTC)I haven't read Smash Hits in years, I don't know why I am finding this news so soul-crushingly depressing.
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Date: 2006-02-02 10:58 pm (UTC)Well - cough cough - there was a while when I was listed on the Smash Hits masthead! (But this didn't mean I was on staff, just that I was "The U.S. West Coast Correspondent." And this was the Australian Smash Hits we're talking about here, not the Brit. The Australian was better.)
A Celebrity
P.S. David Nichols, who was Black Type in the Australian Smash Hits, which means you should revere him as you would a god (or if you don't want to revere him for that, then you can revere him for being drummer and vocalist in the Cannanes (sp?) and then Huon), once sent me a draft memoir of his time at Smash Hits, so those of you into history might want to give the fellow a ring.
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Date: 2006-02-02 11:00 pm (UTC)Humpo, in the Fellowship of the Ringtone