End of an era. For reals.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Emap 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.

Comments

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

"live on as a brand" FOR FVCKS SAKE.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

I refuse to believe that the majority of children, up and down the country, are only spending their money on 'mobile phone content'!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

120,000 isn't too bad I'd have thought, I think reading the horrorstory figures for comics circulation have made me look at anything above 60k with rose-tinted specs.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm naive, 'cos my teenage years just sort of missed this big phone "explosion", but come on, if you got a £5 a week or whatever, would you spend it on ringtones?

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').

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I never read Smash Hits. I spent all my pocket money on Just Seventeen instead so I could read the problem pages innit. I gather "teen girl" mags like J17 and Sugar are still popular? NOT THAT SORT OF TEEN GIRL cough cough. If you are interested in music then you will buy specialist mag. If you have a passing interest then J17 et al have plenty of pages devoted to Hairstyles of the Rich and Famous (and their music). Trust me, I had to photocopy about 300 pages of said magazines to make just one Busted press pack.

"the day the music died"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

another verse in the pipeline!!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4673136.stm

PLASTIC BERTRAND was the first cover star!

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

First nylpm, now this!!!

I haven't read Smash Hits in years, I don't know why I am finding this news so soul-crushingly depressing.

[(Anonymous)]

the magazine famously counts a number of celebrities among its former staff

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.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of giving a ring, for sure the ringtone of choice these days among bright fifteen-year-olds is "My Humps."

Humpo, in the Fellowship of the Ringtone