History of NME

1960’s

During the 1960s the paper championed the new British groups such as The Beatles.

These artists were NME Poll Winners Concert, an awards event that featured artists voted as most popular by the paper's readers.

The concert also featured an awards ceremony. From 1964 onwards they were filmed, edited and then transmitted on British television a few weeks after they had taken place.

The paper became engaged in  tense rivalry with its fellow weekly music paper Melody Maker; however, NME sales were healthy with the paper selling as many as 200,000 issues per week, making it one of the UK's biggest sellers.


1970's

NME had lost ground to the Melody Maker as its coverage of music had failed to keep pace with the development of rock music. which resulted in the verge of closure by its owners IPC.

After sales had plummeted to 60,000 and a bad review, NME had been told to rethink its policies or die on the vine.

 As a result the paper's coverage changed radically from an uncritical and  showbiz-oriented paper to something intended to be smarter, hipper, more cynical and funnier than any mainstream British music paper had previously been.

 In mid-1973, the paper was selling nearly 300,000 copies per week and was outstripping its other weekly rivals.

In 1978  Neil Spencer was made editor, One of his tasks was to oversee a redesign of the paper, which included the logo still used on the paper's today.

1980

 In 1981 the NME released the influential C81 cassette tape, available to readers by mail order at a low price.However sales were dropping, and by the mid 1980s NME had hit a rough patch and was in danger of closing. During this period they were split between those who wanted to write about hip hop, a genre that was relatively new to the UK, and those who wanted to stick to rock music. Sales were apparently lower when photos of hip hop artists appeared on the front. The NME was generally thought to be rudderless at this time, with staff pulling simultaneously in a number of directions in what came to be known as the "hip-hop wars".

Initially, NME writers themselves were ill at ease with the new regime, with most signing a letter of no confidence in Alan Lewis shortly after he took over. However, this new direction for the NME proved to be a commercial success and the paper brought in new writers.

1990

The start of 1990 saw the paper in the thick of the Madchester scene, and covering the new British indie bands. Although it still supported new British bands, the paper was dominated by American bands, as was the music scene in general.

Sutherland did attempt to cover newer bands but one cover feature on Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 1999 saw the paper dip to a sales low.

From the issue of 21 March 1998 onwards, the paper has no longer been printed on newsprint, and more recently it has shifted to tabloid size: it has full, glossy, colour covers.

 In 2000 the closure of the Melody Maker (which officially merged with the NME) and many speculated the NME would be next as the weekly music magazine market was shrinking - the monthly magazine Select, which had thrived.

2000

 In the early 2000s the NME also attempted  to broaden its coverage , running cover stories on hip-hop acts such as Jay-Z  but as in the 1980s these proved unpopular with much of the paper's readership, and were soon dropped.

in 2002 a high turnover of young writers, the paper slowly began to increase in sales.

In October 2006 NME launched an Irish version of the magazine called NME Ireland
This coincided with the launch of Club NME in Dublin. Poor sales in the Republic of Ireland resulted from competition from market leader Hot Press and free music magazines.  This resulted in the magazine's demise in November 2006.

In May 2008 the magazine received a redesign, aimed at an older readership. The first issue of the redesign featured a free seven-inch Coldplay vinyl single.

Circulation of the magazine has fallen continuously since 2003. In the second half of 2009, the magazine's circulation was 38,486, 47% down on a 2003 figure of 72,442.

In 2010 NME partnered with MetroLyrics to provide lyrics snippets on its web site nme.com, with full lyrics exposure at metrolyrics.com.


NME website

What does the NME website offer its audience?

The NME magasine website offers its audience subscription to their magasine, special offers, trial subscriptions and special christmas offers. Therefore trying to get their audience to buy the magasine in bulk, but at the same time identifying with thier audience and what they can afford (4 mags for a pound).

Although the NME website offers its audience the latest news on people in the music industry, exclusive videos and photo's, gig tickets to buy, nme clothing range, the chance to vote for NME award winners, trailors and clips of new movie releases, free downloads, reviews, albums to buy , competitions, weekly newsletter, NME radio, new music or artisists and lyrics to thousands of songs.