IPC subeditors no longer dictate our youth; no longer IPC subeditors

IPC is IPC no more. The NME publisher is rebranding as Time Inc UK.

It's unlikely the new brand will ever inspire anything as glorious as this Clinic track, though:

What the pop papers say: Legacy and stances

In a week when it's been announced that the entire NME readership is lower than the average home gate at Portsmouth, it's time to take one of our semi-regular dips into the magazine.

This week, it's another backward-looking issue - 20th anniversary of the Holy Bible, which is covered in depth, and actually feels like there's something still to say about a record. It helps when the LP has some depth to it. And as a one-off, irregular thing, why shouldn't you mark two decades since a band released something so rich?

Trouble is, they're trailing that next week will be a 20th anniversary issue again. This time of Oasis. The trailer line for that is a quote from Noel in 1994 saying that the album would be what will be remembered in 20 years' time, "not incidents on ferries or drug busts or whatever". Yeah, good luck with that, Noel out of Wibbling Rivalry.

It's not just the Manics' legacy that the issue has explored. There were other questions of history to be addressed, not least the NME's cover this week:

That @NME @Manics cover? That photo of Richey was a MELODY MAKER photo by Tom Sheehan. I was there. My idea. Fucking history-stealing fucks.

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) August 16, 2014

Price - understandably - was upset that there wasn't even mention of the Melody Maker's contribution to the history the one-time rival was rifling. He suggested a though experiment:

I'll never forget the time Richey cut 4 REAL into his arm in front of me as I was interviewing him for Melody Maker. How do like THAT, @NME?

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) August 16, 2014

A point well made, although... not everyone seemed to grasp it.

@David_C_Lewis @simon_price01 Doesn't Steve Lamacq also claim he was interviewing him when he did that? Said in a BBC doc on the Manics.

— Craig Brown (@sloan1874) August 16, 2014

Who knew, though, that the MM-NME war would still be raging this long after one of the flags was lowered for the last time? Even British communists would be surprised at the longevity of ill-will emanating from IPC veterans.

With this week's ABC figures suggesting that the print edition of NME might be reaching an event horizon, you'd have thought the team on the magazine would be taking more care about how they look after the work of former associates, lest one day an NME.com team thinks it's okay to, say, pass off the Brett Anderson and David Bowie photo as their legacy.

Elsewhere, there's good things for readers to explore - Laura Snapes uses a response in Sounding Off to raise the question of why Radio 1 didn't playlist La Roux on grounds that there's a lot of "female-fronted pop acts" competing for airtime. Yeah, 2014, and apparently there's still a quota for women to get onto formidable One FM.

Equally strong is Dan Stubbs call for Insane Clown Posse to either own or condemn the Juggalos:

If Juggalos behave like a gang, then Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are their de facto leaders, whether they like it or not. And if violent crimes are being committed not just in their name, but in their honour, they need to issue a decree to the faithful telling them that it's simply not cool.

There's also a great piece on Howling Owl and how they've worked round a ban from Bristol venues. I'd have liked some more around how The Louisiana had ended up on the wrong side of scrappy pop history, but otherwise Hazel Sheffield had delivered a celebration of DIY culture that could have graced Maximum Rock & Roll. Or Punk Planet, at least.

There's a lot of heart and vibrancy in the NME at the moment, even though it's starting to get lost again in a sea of Uncut-lite jubilee articles. If they can channel that voice, and find a way to celebrate the past without just getting a Google alert that it's 20 years since X and choosing a cover based on that, there's a magazine worth fighting for there.

NME caught in debt-fuelled deal

As part of the splitting up of Time Warner into two smaller media companies, the question of who gets to keep IPC Media (and, thus, the NME) has been settled: Time will generate a massive ballon of debt with which to purchase the UK magazine publisher:

Time Warner officially announced that it's spinning Time Inc. off with $1.4 billion in debt, adding that the financing will be used to purchase Time Inc.'s U.K. operation, IPC Media.

The debt will be raised through an offering of unsecured senior notes and Time Inc. will enter into a secured loan facility, according to a statement.

Whatever remains of the debt facility after buying IPC will be used to pay a cash dividend back to Time Warner.

The suggestion that IPC is worth at the very most $1.4bn will be a bit of a blow to the Blue Fin Building; they were bought for $1.7bn in 2001.

And being bought with a slew of debt isn't a great start for an organisation with a few wobbly titles in its portfolio.

NME publisher announces layoffs

On the heels of a story in the current Private Eye that workers at IPC, publishers of Uncut and NME, are facing a year of frozen wages comes news that 8 per cent of the staff is being let go as part of parent Time Inc's canning of 500 jobs globally.

No word yet on if the job losses will directly hit the music magazines.

NME for sale?

Reports in the Telegraph this morning suggests that Time Warner is taking a close look at flogging off all or some of IPC:

However, sources familiar with the situation cautioned on speculation about a sale of the whole of IPC, saying a full sale was "unlikely" at this stage.

Still, if we worked at the NME, we'd be keeping an eye open for people coming round measuring up for curtains.

NME Radio scales back

IPC Media has decided to more-or-less pull the plug entirely on NME Radio, dumping all but a web presence and dropping the digital radio and TV transmissions.

Oh, and DX Media, who have run the network since it started, have been shown the door.

The plans for taking NME Radio web-only, by the way, don't really sound like NME Radio is going to be NME Radio any more:

NME publishing director Paul Cheal says: "We have enjoyed a great working relationship with DX Media and we would like to thank them for all the excellent work that has gone into NME Radio.

"Meanwhile, we will continue to develop ways in which NME's audience can engage with both audio and content utilising our in-house studio facilities whilst maintaining an online music service via our award-winning music website nme.com."

That 'meanwhile' was, very much, 'there's lots of other music on the site'.

You have to wonder if anyone had even suggested this was a possibility to Krissi Murison a couple of months ago when she suggested NME Radio would be taking up the slack if the BBC killed 6Music:

She supports the survival of BBC 6 Music but points out that NME Radio is its rival. "All the things that people are lamenting about 6 Music are actually happening downstairs here in our basement with NME Radio. NME Radio can fill the gap that people believe is going to be there with the demise of 6 Music."

Well, at least 6Music is still there to fill the gap caused by the demise of NME Radio.

[Thanks to IPC have announced a revival.

It turns out the motivation is less a desire to bring back a cherished brand, and more about protecting the name. A Spanish company, Nice Fashion & Music SL, had been trying to register Melody Maker as its own brand name. IPC objected, telling an IPO Judge that they're busily working on building a digital archive of the magazine:

The publisher said that soon after the magazine's closure, work started on the digitalisation of the Melody Maker archive, with a company employed to electronically scan every page of every issue of Melody Maker magazine, with a view to making the complete searchable digital archive available online under the Melody Maker brand.

IPC claims that any online archive service could be funded by advertising therefore providing users free access to historic Melody Maker artwork, including some of the Melody Maker logos. The publisher said the archive would be of interest to the general public at large as well as to the enthusiasts and academics.

"Soon after the magazine's closure", eh? Sure, there was seventy-odd years' worth of back issues to be scanning, but you'd have to raise a curious eyebrow that IPC have cheerily invested in a decade's worth of content production for a brand they're not actually promoting at the moment. That really is a labour of love. Given that they don't even bother to put most of NME online week-by-week, you'd wonder at the decision to spend so much time to make sure 1947's mid-June issues were available to the world at large.

It's not just scanning, it turns out:

Although the technical aspects of the archive are almost complete, IPC said it still needed to address some legal issues before making the archive available.

It's almost as if Press Gazette is having trouble believing this, too, as they rang IPC to check:

When approached about future plans for the Melody Maker brand, a spokeswoman for IPC Media: "Melody Maker is an iconic brand in the history of music magazines and we will continue to explore ways to make that historic content available digitally."

"We will continue to explore ways" sounds like that spokeswoman has somehow missed the ten-year scanning mission going on elsewhere in the building.

[Thanks to @pelicanhead for the story]

Time not looking for anyone to buy the NME

Anne Moore, the head of Time Inc's magazines business - sorry, I mean, content business - has spoken to The Times about her long-term strategy for the company. It doesn't, it seems, involve flogging off UK consumers magazine business IPC:

Home to NME and Country Life, IPC had faced question marks about its creativity in recent years – and there was talk that Time might be prepared to sell.

“Where did you hear that from? I know, wishful thinking from bankers hoping for a mandate,” she says, praising Sylvia Auton, the boss of IPC. “We are very pleased – three out of her last four launches have been hits – and that’s why we’ve given her more responsibility,” which, it turns out, is running Southern lifestyle titles out of Birmingham, Alabama.

It's not as if anyone would be willingly flogging assets right now anyway - where would you find a buyer for the company when all the stockbrokers are queuing up to have their photos taken with their heads in their hands?