A BRAND NEW NME THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO MUSIC RELAUNCHES

07 October 2013 - Press release

The past, present and future of music

IPC Media today announces a major redevelopment of NME, the first significant change to the music title under editor Mike Williams.
 
The relaunch of NME magazine, on newsstands from 9th October, and the forthcoming refresh of www.NME.com follows an extensive research and development period focusing on NME’s authority, credibility and depth of knowledge. The result of this activity is a complete reworking of the magazine’s content and a refocusing of the key areas online, including the introduction of a number of new franchises and enhancing the most popular sections of the magazine and website.
 
Key changes include:
 

• A new brand aesthetic including a redesigned logo that reasserts the power and credibility of the brand in a dynamic, multi-use format.
• New high-quality matt cover stock and a more vibrant, tablet-friendly print dimension.
• A bigger, enhanced Radar section both in print and online, with four pages dedicated to breaking bands and new music, and contributions from new columnists including Dave Sitek and Huw Stephens. The Radar section on NME.com will be playlist driven and focus on daily new music recommendations.
• Working with the Official Charts Company, the relaunched NME will feature the Official Record Store Chart both in print and online.
• New franchises including Soundtrack Of My Life, Anatomy of An Album and Lost Albums in the magazine
• More music recommendations via an enhanced On Repeat section now recommending 20 essential tracks per week.
• An enhanced Reviews section, featuring more in-depth analysis of records and gigs over 11 pages in the magazine.
• A new From The Vault section, delving into NME’s archive to reprint classic features from NME’s 60 year history.
• A new Guide section, listing gigs on sale that week. The NME Guide also includes a new ‘staying in’ section highlighting the best music radio and TV. NME.com/tickets is the current destination online for up to the minute gig and ticket news.
  

Editor Mike Williams says: “It’s vitally important that NME continues to push things forward and innovate, and this redesign does exactly that, creating a more dynamic, modern magazine that is heavy on content and depth of delivery whilst refreshing the look and feel of NME.com to ensure a superior user experience. The key values of all NME content is that it must be informative, timely, credible, inclusive and above all else, essential. When brought together, these factors ensure that NME is and remains the most definitive music brand in the world. NME is the past, present and future of music and this redesign reasserts that within every new development.”
 
Tracy Cheesman, acting publishing director of NME, adds: “October and the coming months will mark the next exciting chapter in NME’s brand evolution as we unveil a series of developments to the magazine, NME.COM and a number of new strategic partnerships. On NME, we continually strive to make the brand, its platforms and its services more innovative, engaging and usable than ever before and these developments will firmly re-assert NME as the most definitive brand in music.”
 
“NME talks to a global audience of over 3.4 million passionate music fans every week and it’s our mission to super-serve this audience, allowing them to access NME wherever they are. The development team has done an incredible job of re-working the magazine from top to toe and with the new, dynamic aesthetic, come a raft of new opportunities for our advertisers and partners.”
 
The new NME magazine goes on sale nationally on October 9th, and will be supported by an extensive outdoor, digital and print marketing campaign.