The latest music magazine to hit the shelves has folded after just a week.
Popworld Pulp - which featured Klaxons on its first cover and Fall Out Boy on the second (and last) - has had its plug pulled following poor sales. It has shifted 9,000 copies from a print run of 130,000.
The magazine - linked with the television show Popworld - was expected to be a success, aiming for an audience into both NME and Heat. Publisher Darren Styles commented:
"The magazine has bombed in a way nobody connected with it could ever have envisaged."
In development for over a year, Popworld Pulp was well researched prior to its launch. Says Styles:
"Every piece of research we did, every dummy we created and the concept in all its forms was fantastically received from first to last. The industry wanted it, the news trade wanted it, the market was there according to every group we asked - but come the acid test the readers were absent."
Of the magazine's 14 staff, ten have been made redundant.
DiScuss: Is there room in the print magazine market for any new arrivals, or are all avenues closed? Was this new magazine simply too NME for its own good?
you should save up your word count and get on the social boards more often
this story is older than a bootleg copy of Sonic Death.
'folded'
lol
you need a less demographically obsessed magazine
but that will never happen - just look at the cover of 'Pulp' and you can see it by rights is following a hackneyed formula to 'appeal' to a transitory group of people.
you think I have time to look at the social board?
Just playing
take a deep breath now!
Print Is Dead
...what's the point in creating new magazines?
lol
Well....
With a choice between NME and Artrocker you're painfully close to the truth with the death of print. However, considering the startling amount of music available to the us, a magazine with interesting, inciteful and not flippant and boorishly scene articles is absolutely necessary. Print media is about writing to share an oppinion. The point in creating new magazines is to fill the cave left by MM and NME pre shiteness. Journalistic tallent exists, subject matter exists; a society with the patience to read and digest it without a disgustingly eye-catching pop cover may not. Perhaps the name here cut the chances of success, who wants to own a magazine that knows it's shite?
err
http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/1880464
"Every piece of research we did..."
yes, and look what melody maker turned into after research and focus groups.
at least that lasted a few years after the redesign...
...didn't it? I'm sure I have at least two Christmas specials once it went glossy...
a actually remember
when heat first came out was actually really good. was a more light heated version of Sight and Sound.
to be honest, melody maker went shit well before the redesign as they'd already got rid of all the journalists and replaced them with people who re-wrote press releases.
man
i miss melody maker. sure it turned into smash hits at the end, but they gave me a sneak preview of F***in in the Bushes by Oasis 4 months before its release.
Two weeks?
Two fucking weeks? Quite a knee-jerk reaction, no? How about giving it a little while on the market so people are actually aware that it exists?
Stupid decision
MM made the mistake of shrinking down and going a bit too metal
I gave up buying it when it had a picture of QOSTA and a blow up doll on the cover. I last bought NME when AndrewWK was on the cover. THe answer is never to invest in 'fun' metal.
i wouldnt really call QOTSA 'fun metal'
i think they are ace.
but thats beside the point. this is a ridiculous knee-jerk reaction and just goes to show how quickly people want results now. that said, i flicked through the first issue the other day and it seemed pretty awful at first look. plus the cover does make it look like a cross between Heat and Look-In. Maybe that's the demographic now?
so you want magazines that
are less demographically-obsessed, but not ones that take a chance and put a band from outside their usual demo on the front cover?
hmm.
QOTSA
Are metal now are they? News to me and possibly anyone else who has ever heard them.
i had no idea this existed.
adverts? plugging? billboards? no? nothing?
i still wouldn't have bought it though, but i guess I am 8 years passed the market though.
What did they do...
with the other 121,000?
PS. On the cover: "It hurts when people hate us". Tooo lol.
they'll be Pulped
...
it looks like
a celeb gossip magazine, no wonder it folded so quickly with 109 other titles available on the shelves every week.
I've never even heard of it. But I dont suppose my life would've been enriched by reading it.
Ho-hum.
Yea I agree
Why try and make a 'cool' music magazine, and then make it look like Smash Hits!?
if you change the logo at the top
it would look exactly like nme
AHhahaha.
I actually laughed audibly then. Like, you could hear me.
ten of the fourteen have been made redundant...
what exactly are the other four going to do onna folded magazine?
Gather up 121,000 un-sold issues?
.
the other 4...
were probably the Managing Editors and Publishers and other top positions... they most likey got to keep their jobs and move another magazine
.
imagine the excitement they must've had when they got the job at a brand new music magazine with a tv show to help promote it man this is gonna be amaaziingggg! my dream job!!
then two weeks into it youre sacked. poor sods
i saw this in a services...
i thought it was a special nme devoted to pulp, which was strange considering it had klaxons on it
Me too
I saw it in London and bought it. Quite enjoyed it actually.
However it does look like a copy of smash hits.
choice between nme and artrocker?
ever heard of plan b?
yeh, his rapping is awful
lolololololol
Plan B
is weekly now is it?
How about a black front cover and calling it 'last dash'
There is a magazine called sfx which says on the site it has a circulation of 30,000 or somesuch (per month). Possibly they should have done a smaller run etc, but I think this was more a publicity exercise/half assed attempt than anything- calling it pulp, and then after I would say decent sales of 9,000 scrapping it.
If only I had the time, resources and people
To make a music magazine.
It would be really good.
^ do it online
s'easy.
wow
never even heard about that one till now...
i suppose another reason why its gone already.. lack of advertising?
record breakers
is that the quickest time a music mag has gone bust ever? this story reminded me of the brief existence of Bang magazine - what a shitbag that was.
worst.magazine.ever.
T'was alright
Tax dodge?
Some people are saying that the publishers weren't that committed to having it around.
bf
This is fucking hilarious.
Indie is popular now, and fuckers like this are trying their darndest to fuck that up, by making indie as uncool looking as possible. The thing I've noticed about the current 'indie' thing, is that people are into honest things that appear to be uncommercialised. They don't want to be sold indie in the same way as pop is sold.
The front of that magazine looks like Smash Hits!
bf
ps- and what a time to launch a magazine based around popworld- when two new presenters join who no one likes!
I like looking at...
Alexa.. its just the speaking bit
Have to agree...
...it does look like Smash Hits style mag making indie and rock digestable for the early teen market.
This country is screaming out for another music weekly - something like DiS but in print.
Who actually buys NME anyway? And for that matter, does anyone know any bands that actually care whether they're in it?
the answer to your question
is...
a) way too many people, although the price going up every month seems to suggest otherwise
b) just about every band on the planet wants to be in it and soak up some gushing praise - but they'll deny it your face, the narcissistic whores
Nah
I don't think many bands even deny it.
I don't buy NME, I'm not a big fan of NME, but I really hope the NME soon thinks we're the best band since sliced bread.
It's a great helping hand to any band - as long as you don't write shit music in the HOPE it'll get you in NME, then it's a great thing.
It would just be my band, as we are at the moment, only with an extra few thousand people lsitening to our music and, hopefully, coming to our gigs.
Ace.
*listening
.
Hahahaha!
lol
.
they certainly should've sacked the designers.
I got...
...a free sample version of the magazine outside a gig and it wasn't that good. Mainly full of pictures of the likes of Fall Out Boy and very little writing. Any writing that there was, was pretty rubbish. NME is shit, Artrocker is great...in the meantime read Nightshift: http://nightshift.oxfordmusic.net/phpbb3/index.php
what a waste of time
can't believe a company who calls themselves magazine publishers would release a mag then pull it off the shelves in one week!!What a group of c***s.I looked up their profile and they publish a pile of shit so no wonder this failed with tards like that running the shit show.
The mag looked great and made me lol.At last there was something to rival the NME who's smug and self satisfied tone makes me vomit.
nah it looked shit...
harsh
should have given it a go at least
Magazines
Anyone remember X-Ray and Bang? They both failed fairly miserably too, didn't they?
Fact news:
Kerrang! has greater weekly sales figures than NME. NME is desperate to get its circulation up again, but is does not seem to be working