PRINT MAGS, ARE WE REACHING FANS, OR EACH OTHER? |

Lately, I’ve been asking myself if music media even matters anymore now that everything is online and free. Earlier this year, we announced plans for a print magazine, with a major cover star lined up and everything moving forward, but ultimately we shelved it due to budget and time constraints. I’m not sure people realise that Anne and I make no money from this; it’s all driven by passion and a desire to support the industry.

Of course, everybody bringing back print says it connects fans with artists, supports discovery and builds communities. All of that sounds wonderful. It’s really why we wanted to do it. But really, just how many of those magazines, articles, interviews and features are actually finding their way into the hands of music fans, rather than industry professionals? That’s not criticism either; it’s just curiosity. As a group of people wanting to print a magazine, of course all this matters to us too.

Having spent close to ten years documenting musicians, interviewing artists, editing magazines as well as been a fan. I saw firsthand how entire publication houses could rise and fall, rebrand, get bought, or shut down, often without ever really reaching the fans these magazines were meant for. I worked on magazines with eight-page spreads on big-name artists that were handed out for free in huge retail stores. We had big-name charities involved too.

So I have to ask again. If a lot of these magazines are free, are they really reaching the people who care most about the music, or just filling a gap for advertisers and venues? If this magazine costs zero pence, whose problem are we solving here exactly?

Sure, maybe it solves a problem for advertisers, venues, or sponsors, and in many cases the artist needs exposure and visibility too. It might not be the paying reader, though.
Again, there’s absolutely no shame or discredit to publishing free content; there are some brilliant free magazines out there. The problem is claiming audience interest when free magazines really just show wide distribution, not whether anyone actually read or cared about them.

Just because the pile disappears doesn’t necessarily mean the reader picked it up, read it, valued it and would ever consider buying it themselves if they could. I think a little honesty goes far.
At the same time, discovery methods have fundamentally shifted.

Music fans no longer rely on magazines alone to find artists; we all know this. They connect via social platforms, streaming services, official websites, emails, YouTube channels, TikToks, recommendations and word-of-mouth. Magazines lost their gatekeeping function a long time ago.

To help answer some of these questions about real fan engagement, the first Music Fans’ Voice survey gathered responses from more than 8,000 UK music fans in 2025. One of its more interesting findings was how fans now discover events and information. Social media, artist websites and word of mouth were identified as key sources, while artist and venue social channels were the most commonly visited sources of information.

“One in ten respondents to the Music Fans’ Voice survey worked within the music industry. It made me wonder what the equivalent figure is for music publications. How many readers are fans, and how many already work within the business?”

If fans are increasingly getting information directly from artists and venues on their social media pages, where does that leave traditional print music media?

One more structural pattern is hard to ignore. Much of the industry’s attention, the press trips, the cover features, the playlist pushes, the social campaigns, appears disproportionately focused on content from young creators. This makes commercial sense in an attention economy dominated by platforms whose heaviest users are under 30. Welcome to the attention economy market and influencers. But it also means that the stories, images and interviews that circulate most energetically inside the professional network are often the ones least likely to reach, or resonate with, the broader, older, or more offline sections of the actual music-listening public. The result is another version of the same closed loop, activity that looks like cultural vitality from inside the industry in terms of views, likes, shares and content, yet may not translate into wider fan engagement of the actual bands.

The content is produced in massive quantities anyway, though.

Nowadays every press release becomes an interview, becomes a blog post, becomes a tweet. Every feature gets quoted, shared, retweeted and covered again somewhere else. Artists share each other’s interviews, photographers post each other’s photoshoots. PRs circulate press releases, publications cover each other’s coverage, and the cycle repeats endlessly.

Often enough, I wonder if we’re confusing activity with social media audience engagement. The magazine becomes a business card, a portfolio, a reason to keep sending emails and attending the same events. The cover star, the eight-page feature, the sold-out print run all look like proof of vitality. But if the majority of those copies are bought or gifted to contributors, photographers, publicists, label staff, venue bookers, and friends of the publication, then what are we really measuring? It’s more the size of the professional circle, not the size of the audience.

If a meaningful percentage of every sold-out print run we hear about on social media is accounted for by people who already work in, or adjacent to, the industry, then the project may not be serving music fans as much as we think. It may instead be serving the continued existence of the people producing it. There is nothing inherently shameful about that. Most of us need ways to stay connected, visible and purposeful. But it is a very different story from the one we usually tell ourselves, and the one we present to the public. I’ve met a lot of people over the years who appear more invested in the image of working in music than the actual work. Going backstage, interviewing bands and getting access can look glamorous from the outside, but it’s still a job. It isn’t one big party, and it certainly isn’t a substitute for producing something of value.

The statistic I’d really like to see is one nobody seems to publish. How many readers actually work in the music industry? How many copies are being bought by contributors, photographers, artists, PRs, labels, friends and family members, and how many are being bought by music fans with no connection to the publication whatsoever? The fact that those numbers are rarely disclosed feels like part of the story. I’m not arguing that the audience doesn’t exist. I’m simply asking why nobody seems particularly interested in proving who that audience actually is, and I think that’s because none of us wants to face the truth. We want to go down fighting, but that’s draining, and what does it prove? Change happens whether we like it or not.

“One magazine I worked on actively encouraged us to sell as many copies to friends and family. I remember thinking at the time that something about that didn’t sit quite right with me. If the publication was truly connecting with an audience, why were we relying on our personal networks to shift copies?”

Say if a magazine has a cost, as many do. If a publication claims every copy sold out, who exactly bought those copies? That’s not the same question as whether they sold. A sell-out only tells us that something was purchased. It doesn’t tell us whether those copies ended up in the hands of music fans, or whether they were bought largely by contributors, photographers, artists, PRs, record labels, venues, friends and family members. They’re very different audiences, and understanding the difference seems fairly important if we’re trying to measure genuine reader demand and if all the effort is worth it. Another uncomfortable possibility is that some publications exist less because there’s significant audience demand for them and more because they confer status, credibility or visibility on the people involved in producing them.

PAMCo, the official organisation for UK audience metrics for publishing, started measuring audience numbers on print, website, mobile and tablet media. This makes sense because print distribution figures can no longer accurately capture reading numbers. Which leaves the question… Why do discussions of power dynamics in music media publications keep revolving around followers, distributions, and guesswork instead of consumption metrics?

What sustains these projects is a quiet, collective agreement to keep one another afloat. Writers commission photographers who then credit the writers. PRs send advance copies to the same small pool of titles, knowing those titles will cover the release, which the artist then shares, which the PR then circulates as proof of press. Contributors buy each other’s issues. Labels take out ads not necessarily because the readership is large, but because the publication still confers a certain legitimacy and keeps them looking active. Venues stock the free magazines because it looks supportive. Everyone is, in effect, holding everyone else up and not out of malice, but because the alternative is admitting that the external audience has largely moved on. Activity is mistaken for engagement. Circulation is mistaken for reach. Presence is mistaken for purpose.

“When music media says it’s reaching people, who exactly are those people? Because until we know the answer, we’re left with the possibility that some parts of music publishing aren’t primarily connecting fans with artists at all. They’re connecting the industry with itself.”

The important part isn’t whether print is dying; that discussion is about a decade overdue now. What’s far more pertinent to my mind is whether some elements of music media have developed into self-referential ecosystems made up of writers, photographers, artists, PRs, record labels, agents and publishers producing material consumed primarily within this network itself.

Either it is, or it isn’t. In which case, there are statistics to prove it. If it is, let’s own it. Either way, the critical thing before we discuss importance or impact is to establish who we are really serving.