NME Institution Research

NME Story Video
NME Story part 1
NME Story part 2
NME Story part 3
NME Story part 4

In todays lesson we watched a video on the NME Story, I also made some further research on the internet, here is what I found out:

New Musical Express(NME) started out as a music newspaper as of March 1952 and eventually turned to a magazine style in the 80s. NME was created by Theodore Smythson. NME is currently owned by IPC Media.

The magazines main goal was to tell their audience about music in anyway. They would use pictures and interviews along with gig dates and band reviews.NME was also the first music magazine to incorporate a chart list.

With over 300,000 sales in the space of 6 months, NME's sales peaked with Andy Gray as editor.






NME used simple techniques to attract its audience. This involved simple covers with direct text to what to expect in the magazine. They also put big artists on the front cover such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. These two bands were regularly featured on the cover throughout the 60s

NME also had to keep up with the times and adapt to the nations favourite music. For example they would go from focusing on rock to pop. Another artist they had regularly on the cover to attract an audience was, Morrissey.

Through all of NME's success at times they weren't the 'top dog' all of the time. They had unique things about their magazines that kept readers coming back but still a rival. NME lost out to Melody Maker when it came to the development of rock music to psychedelia and progressive rock.

To combat NME's plummet in sales Alan Smith took over as editor in the early 70s to rethink it's attitude and approach. He was given a short time, by the owners, IPC, to turn things around. He managed to turn the sales around from 60,000 to nearly 300,000. He done this by making the magazine more cynical, funny and smarter, and more critically based. To do this he hired some new writers and some underground writers. Some if the most influential were Tom Wolfe and Lester Bangs. NME were now outselling their mainstream rivals, Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Sounds.

NME - 90s

In the 90s NME took slowly to the grunge movement, with bands mainly coming from Seattle. The most popular bands being, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. NME took to grunge only after 'Nevermind' became popular. This gave NME's rivals such as Sounds and Melody Maker a chance to outdo them.

In 92 NME had a dispute with one of their Heros, Morrissey. This caused Morrissey to not speak to NME for over a decade. The dispute regarded allegations that he had used racist lyrics and imagery. This began when at a concert Morrissey draped himself in a union flag.
Morrissey spoke to NME again as the writers concerned had long gone.

In 94 the death of Cobain not only had a big effect on his fans but also the magazine. This saw a big change in British music replacing Grunge with Britpop. 
Britpop exploded with the success of Oasis and Blur, as a result of this NME's sales increased.



Now the magazine was left directionless again and saw a sales decrease through the attempted recreation of their 80s style. They insulted Tony Blair. This gave them more media attention but ultimately saw them reach a record low in sales by the turn of the millennium.





2000s:
From 1998 NME had full glossy colour covers.
With the closure of Melody Maker when the merged with NME, and Select also closing with in a week of this, it looked like NME could be next. Due to this, NME tried to broaden their reach again by featuring hip hop artists such as Jay-Z and R&B acts such as Destiny's Child.
However like before, it proved unpopular with their readership and was soon dropped.
NME later picked up trying to promote new bands again and had a big influence on the rise of, The Vines, The Strokes and The White Stripes.
In 2002 Conor McNicholas was appointed new editor, which brought about new photographers.
NME then focused on indie bands such as The Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party.
In October 2006 NME launched NME Ireland. The first issue featured Dublin band, Humanzi. However due to competition from Hot Press and free magazine the magazine saw it'd demise in the November of the same year.
In May 2008 the magazine was redesigned to be aimed at older people. With the first issue of the new design readers received a received a free 7-inch Coldplay vinyl.
Since 2003 NME has continuously fallen in sales. The second of of 2011 saw figures at 23,924. This was 66% down of 2003 figure, 72,442.