BenjaminBakerASMedia : October 2016

How has the internet changed the music press?

When the internet was invented it revolutionised everything, the press and news were impacted significantly. As society started using new media platforms like Facebook and other social networks Magazines and journalists started using them as well as it connected them with their audience and it would help them keep up to date with other things going on. Each magazine in circulation right now has its own website, but magazines still publish physical copies. However, the most magazine sales have dropped Magazines do focus more on celebrity’s personal lives a lot more than they used to, NME’s sales have dropped to only 14,000 per week on average. Magazines such as the Rolling Stone focus more on their front covers as they rely heavily on that to draw in readers. For example, Rolling Stone issue after the Boston bombing featured the bomber on the front page, this was controversial but still gained attention.

Radio Shows have become able to stream online and podcasts are available to download letting music fans listen when they choose. Any magazine article can be found the magazines websites and links will often be put out to Facebook and Twitter, this lets the target audience of magazines connect with the magazine more.

Some magazines have become largely based on the internet or are solely online such as Ultimate Guitar or NME. Kerrang benefited by converging media early on.

Websites: Websites were not as good as they are now and many magazine’s websites only included basic things on them and didn’t have adverts. Whereas today all websites have adverts but have much more content and more articles than their issues of magazines have. Websites have changed their style to seem more appealing as it is the face of magazine and links the fans to the artists.

Social Media: One thing for certain is that magazine’s marketing relies heavily on social media. It is the main way to get news out to readers and is now exploiting how many things people share to reach other audiences by getting into people’s newsfeed on things like Facebook, Reddit and Tumblr. This is shown by bands switching to the more popular social media sites (like Facebook and Twitter) and leaving less popular sites like Myspace this shows how much magazines and companies rely on social media.

Downloads and Streaming: When Apple launched the iPod, people started “illegally” downloading music and sales went down significantly. This forced Record labels to change the way they sold music. They let people buy music online opening up a brand-new market. Today streaming music has taken over downloads but illegal downloads are still very high.