''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by
Future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
.
History
Founded in 1959 as ''
Record Retailer
''Record Retailer'' was the only music trade newspaper for the UK record industry. It was founded in August 1959 as a monthly newspaper covering both labels and dealers. Its founding editor was Roy Parker (who died on 27 December 1964). The title ...
'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music Week''.
On 17 January 1981, the title again changed, owing to the increasing importance of sell-through videos, to ''Music & Video Week''. The rival ''Record Business'', founded in 1978 by Brian Mulligan and Norman Garrod, was absorbed into Music Week in February 1983. Later that year, the offshoot ''Video Week'' launched and the title of the parent publication reverted to ''Music Week''.
Since April 1991, ''Music Week'' has incorporated ''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the ''NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in ''Re ...
'', initially as a 4 or 8-page chart supplement, later as a dance supplement of articles, reviews and charts. In the 1990s, several magazines and newsletters become part of the Music Week family: ''Music Business International (MBI)'', ''Promo'', ''MIRO Future Hits'', ''Tours Report'', ''Fono'', ''Green Sheet'', ''
ChartsPlus
''UKChartsPlus'' is an independent weekly newsletter about the UK music charts. It was first published in September 2001 as ''ChartsPlus'' in order to authoritatively record the official music chart information in the United Kingdom, as compiled ...
'' (published from May 1991 to November 1994), and ''
Hit Music
''Hit Music'' was a weekly British chart newsletter; sister publication to ''Music Week''. ''Hit Music'' existed for almost nine years, supplying the official UK music charts (as compiled by Gallup and later OCC/CIN). The founding editors were ...
'' (September 1992 to May 2001). By May 2001, all newsletters (except ''Promo'') closed.
In 2003, ''Music Week'' relaunched its website of daily news, features, record release listings and UK sales, airplay and club charts. In early 2006, a separate free-to-access site for the ''Music Week Directory'' listed 10,000 contacts in the UK music industry. In mid-2007, the magazine was redesigned by London company This Is Real Art. In October 2008, another redesign led to major changes.
In June 2011, ''Music Week'' was sold to Intent Media.
The package was sold for £2.4m
and also contained titles ''Television Broadcast Europe'', ''Pro Sound News'', ''Installation Europe'', and additional websites, newsletters, conferences, show dailies and awards events, which generated £5.4m of revenue in 2010.
As of issue 30 July 2011, UBM is still named as publisher,
as the new publisher Intent Media took over on 1 August 2011.
In the first edition under new ownership it was announced that the title would switch its day of publication Monday to Thursday with immediate effect.
NewBay Media
NewBay Media, LLC was a magazine and website publisher founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City.
NewBay Media served five marketplaces — Music, Pro Audio/AV, Video & Broadcast, Consumer Electronics, and Education.
In April 2018, Fu ...
acquired Intent Media in 2012.
Future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
acquired NewBay Media in 2018 and decided that the publication would go monthly from March 2021, in keeping with its Louder Sound publications such as ''
Metal Hammer
''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form ...
'' and ''
Classic Rock magazine
''Classic Rock'' is a British magazine and website dedicated to rock music, owned and published by Future. It was launched in October 1998 and is based in London. The magazine publishes 13 editions a year, mainly covering rock bands from the 60, ...
''
Charts
''Music Week'' features these British charts:
the
Official Top 75 Singles of the month, the
Official Top 75 Albums of the month (similar to charts used by ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British Record chart, music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show ...
''
in the early 1990s
and
Absolute 80s
Absolute Radio 80s is a national digital radio station, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Absolute Radio Network.
History
Absolute Radio 80s launched at 7.00pm on 4 December 2009, replacing Absolute Xtreme.
The marketing plan for Abs ...
on Sundays) and the Official Vinyl Charts. Specialist charts include the Official Top 20 Americana, the Official Top 20 Classical, the Official Top 20 Hip-Hop & R&B, the Official Top 20 Jazz, the Official Top 20 Country, the Official Top 20 Dance, the Official Top 20 Folk and the Official Top 20 Rock & Metal. Also found in Music Week are charts for streaming and various album compilations, whilst James Masterton's weekly Official UK chart analysis column can now only accessed online by subscribers.
When the magazine was a weekly publication it included Top 75 Singles, Top 75 Artist Albums, Top 20 Downloads, Top 20 Ringtones, Top 20 Compilation Albums, Top 50 Radio Airplay, Top 40 TV airplay, and a number of format and genre charts (Music DVD, Rock, Indie, etc.). It also included background on sales and airplay analysis from Alan Jones. Following a redesign in October 2008, the magazine introduced live charts based on Tixdaq data, a Box Office chart and predictive charts based on information from
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
,
Rakuten.co.uk
Rakuten.co.uk is a website owned by Rakuten, that operates as an online marketplace. The website does not sell any products directly, but instead allows third party sellers to sell their products. The website replaced Play.com, which was origin ...
,
Shazam,
HMV
Sunrise Records and Entertainment, trading as HMV (for His Master's Voice), is a British music and entertainment retailer, currently operating exclusively in the United Kingdom.
The first HMV-branded store was opened by the Gramophone Company ...
.com and
Last.fm
Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, e ...
. ''Music Week'' compiled and published weekly club charts from chart returns supplied by DJs in nightclubs; Upfront Club Top 40, Commercial Pop Top 30 and Urban Top 30. The magazine also published a weekly Cool Cuts chart compiled from DJ feedback and sales reports from independent record shops, which traced it roots back to James Hamilton's ''BPM'' section in ''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the ''NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in ''Re ...
'' (a publication which ended up as the middle dance music section of Music Week in 1991).
''Music Week'' Charts Analysis
Even though the magazine is now a monthly publication, the website still posts weekly Charts Analysis pages for the UK Official Singles and Albums charts. Alan Jones was the writer of the section until he retired in March 2020, when Chart Watch UK writer
James Masterton
James Masterton (born 2 September 1973) is a music writer and columnist, his work focusing on the UK Singles Chart having been an online fixture on various sites since the 1990s. Masterton is also a producer for talkSPORT, and has worked on air ...
was hired to take over the role.
Masterton wrote two weekly Charts Analysis pages
for the website (as the magazine now features charts compiled from monthly sales and streams) until 29 October 2021, when ''Music Week'' staff performed the role. After Andre Paine and Ben Homewood wrote one each of the Charts Analysis posts on 5 November 2021, Alan Jones resumed the role again, writing the 12 November overviews, with no explanation of why he returned (with the pages titled ''Charts analysis: ABBA's Voyage opens with huge sale of 204,000'' for the albums and ''Charts analysis: Adele spends fourth week at summit ahead of album release'' for the singles).
Publishing details
''Music Week'' is published monthly by Future (from the March 2021 edition), though previously it was a weekly magazine (50 editions p.a.). It was available as a B4-sized printed magazine and a
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
''digital edition''. .
Editorial staff
''As at July 2021 print edition''
* Head of Content: George Garner
* Features Editor: Ben Homewood
* Digital Editor: Andre Paine
* Content Editor/Producer: Lucy Thraves
* Charts & Data: Isabelle Nesmon
* Art Editor: Steve Newman
Circulation
The weekly print circulation in 1997/98 was 12,503,
but by the time the publication left the ABC scheme in 2011 it had fallen to around 5,000 weekly copies. In October 2011, ''Music Week'' deregistered with ABC after 54 years of membership.
The website musicweek.com had 63,904 monthly unique browsers for the audited period 1–31 October 2008. By 2009, the website had been deregistered with ABC.
See also
*
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
* ''
ChartsPlus
''UKChartsPlus'' is an independent weekly newsletter about the UK music charts. It was first published in September 2001 as ''ChartsPlus'' in order to authoritatively record the official music chart information in the United Kingdom, as compiled ...
''
* ''
UKChartsPlus
''UKChartsPlus'' is an independent weekly newsletter about the UK music charts. It was first published in September 2001 as ''ChartsPlus'' in order to authoritatively record the official music chart information in the United Kingdom, as compile ...
''
* ''
Hit Music
''Hit Music'' was a weekly British chart newsletter; sister publication to ''Music Week''. ''Hit Music'' existed for almost nine years, supplying the official UK music charts (as compiled by Gallup and later OCC/CIN). The founding editors were ...
''
* ''
Record Retailer
''Record Retailer'' was the only music trade newspaper for the UK record industry. It was founded in August 1959 as a monthly newspaper covering both labels and dealers. Its founding editor was Roy Parker (who died on 27 December 1964). The title ...
''
* ''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the ''NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in ''Re ...
''
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1959 establishments in the United Kingdom
Business magazines published in the United Kingdom
Music magazines published in the United Kingdom
Weekly magazines published in the United Kingdom
Magazines published in London
Magazines established in 1959
Professional and trade magazines
British record charts