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Record of the Day

The closure of The Word signals a particularly depressing moment in the development of music journalism says David Balfour

12 Jul 2012

Over the last decade we’ve witnessed the closure of many formerly solid publications. In many cases these closures have been unsurprising. Often there’s been an aspect of mismanagement: of overexpansion or overspend. In other cases, magazines have been culled as a result of a shift in corporate policy or of restructuring, regardless of their underlying potential for future success. Leaving aside individual cases however, the underlying trend has been clear: income generators such as subscriber numbers and advertising spend have been falling, whilst operating expenses such as printing and distribution costs have been rising.

Clearly the decline of the printed music press is nothing new. What we find upsetting about the case of The Word is that it seemed to get so much right before finally meeting the same fate as lesser publications. There’s no doubt that the magazine was run by passionate, talented and highly experienced staff, that it was run by an independent publisher that ‘gets’ the market, that its core subscribers were not just consumers but avid fans. Even this wasn’t enough to save the title however. When even an award-winning magazine with a devoted fanbase cannot make things work financially, it’s clear evidence of an underlying problem that may be unfixable.

RotD has always been a purely digital publication. With a focus on breaking news and on exposing music, the digital medium was always the only sensible approach for us. This doesn’t mean however that we’re not avid fans of the printed press. Indeed, we’ve aimed to celebrate printed music journalism wherever possible, by underlining the importance of newspapers in breaking both news and artists, and by celebrating magazines at our annual Record of the Day Awards for Music Journalism and PR.

Some of the RotD staff fall into the demographic that originally consumed printed music magazines because they were the only music magazines available. But even for us, the NME or Melody Maker of the 80s and early 90s were part of a much longer tradition of music journalism that was about far more than the medium on which it is presented. Music journalism at its best provides a colour and context that enhances music, that makes artists more real (or unreal), that creates communities and reinforces fandom. We’ve always felt that those most vital and gratifying qualities of music journalism do not necessarily translate well to digital media.

Community in the digital sphere sometimes seems little more than a word used by marketers to try and stick some meaning on clicks, to make an audience which is lightly-engaged and not altogether loyal seem a little more cohesive. The reality is that digital media, despite enabling readers to actually listen to music within a publication, has often had a negative influence on music journalism. Perhaps it’s because the reader is distracted by the audio and the video, by the links to other pages and other featured artists? Another ironic reality of digital is that whilst longform journalism can be published without fear of expense, the more in-depth and lengthy that journalism becomes, the higher the chances that the audience won’t read it, that a beautifully-written and deeply researched piece will receive that most-dreaded of comments: TLDR.

Music journalism in 2012 faces a twin assault: both from economic realities and from a changing audience. Subscriber and buyer numbers are down and even record companies are not only spending less on advertising in general but increasingly directing their advertising spend to digital channels and away from magazines. Meanwhile the digital channels do not generally encourage quality journalism of the ‘old’ type. For every engaged reader of The Quietus or The Arts Desk, for example, there are many more who find their new music via social media, though perhaps this kind behaviour isn’t something new to digital. Frustratingly, those publications that have tried to embrace new channels such as iPad editions have often found that these are no more financially viable than the print alternatives, with digital audiences far less willing to pay than they were in former times. The UK newspapers still represent a beacon of hope – an area where music journalism retains an important profile and a national audience. It can’t be ignored however that newspapers are also struggling to adapt, and that music coverage – or at least the type where journalists actually get paid for their work – increasingly seems to be one of the first casualties in any changes.

Whilst the general outlook is bleak, there are reasons for holding out hope. The rise of blogs has shown that quality journalism can still survive and find an audience and also directly spread music in a way that did not exist in print. Meanwhile it’s clear that some digital publications can still play host to thoughtful, engaging music journalism that helps build music and musicians to become something greater than they would be without its influence. The passion of writers is also still abundant: RotD’s panels at this year’s The Great Escape played host to some brilliant, interesting debate about music writing. Mostly therefore, it’s just the economics that are screwed and this of course means that music journalism is becoming an ever less viable profession. We wish we had a solution. Perhaps though, if record companies are prepared to prop up HMV because it’s too important to fail, they should also review the nature of their engagement with music magazines and newspapers before there are none left? Or do we just accept that the game has changed, and that music journalism as we have known it for decades has entered its final phase?

Record of the Day