Spook! Smash Hits lowers its thumbs

But what about Smash Hits TV and Smash Hits Radio and all that toss?

Perhaps they think the brand is strong enough that they can kill off the magazine and still keep those going? Or another round of renaming is on the cards…

Good post here:

In 1981, Smash Hits editor David Hepworth sent a memo to record company press departments that read: "It is my intention to reverse the entire direction of [popular music publishing] in favor of entirely trivia.... We want to know the colour of your artists' socks."

I am shedding several tears, which I'll use Chris Lowe's backpocket hankerchief to dry.

Aw man! Special place in m'heart for oldskool Smash Hits, at the least. I have the first ever Aus issue (about 1985 I think) which had John Taylor on the front cover. I dont know where my old SH mags are now, but my mother hoards all my old stuff so they must be around somewhere.

Puh-lease as Mr Tennant would have said.

This reminds me of the way I felt when John Peel died - I feel sad it's going even though I've not been interested in it for the last eleven years, cos when I was interested it was really important to me.

Shout outs to Mark Sutherland, Miranda Sawyer and Mark Frith back when he used to be good. Shitty stick in the eye to Kate Thornton, who ruined everything.

I guess I'll buy the last one, and then I'll no doubt be horrified at its awfulness and glad to see it put out of its misery.

God bless them for keeping me well-stocked in song lyrics & trivia for my early teen years. Thank you, Smash Hits, and farewell... (waves hankie)

Yes! Song lyrics were what ver Hits was all about! And the silly letters (I wrote a few myself), and Black Type.

Aw man now I'm going to have to call my mum and demand she fish all my copies out and post them to me.

Emap to close Smash Hits magazine after 28 years
by Jennifer Whitehead Brand Republic 2 Feb 2006

Smash Hits: brand will live on

LONDON - Emap is to close Smash Hits magazine after 28 years, succumbing to the trend of young readers deserting magazines to spend time online and their money on mobile phone content.

In the last set of circulation figures, published by the ABC in August 2005, Smash Hits reported a drop of 4.4% to report sales of just over 120,000 copies an issue -- hundreds of thousands of copies fewer than it sold in its heyday in the late 1980s.

Smash Hits will live on as a brand in the form of a music television channel, which is available on cable and satellite, and a digital radio station, which launched on Freeview in 2002. The last issue of the magazine will appear on February 13.

As well as being the music and entertainment bible for a generation of teenagers, the magazine famously counts a number of celebrities among its former staff. These include Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant, who once boasted of having introduced the phrase "pur-lease" to the magazine, and the 'X Factor' host Kate Thornton.

The magazine was founded in 1978 by Nick Logan, who had previously edited the NME. Logan went on to create 80s fashion bible The Face.

Things are tough in the market for teenage publications. The Sunday Times is considering closing its children's supplement The Funday Times, while Hachette Filipacchi abandoned ElleGirl magazine after four years because of its dwindling circulation.

In the August 2005 ABCs, not one of the teenage-targeted magazines recorded a rise in circulation.

Publishers blame a variety of factors for the desertion of readers, including more diverse tastes in music and fewer exciting stars, and more competition for pocket money as teens turn their mobile phones for entertainment.

Yow wouldn't let it lie!

Not helped by the fact that the guy EMAP put out to comment on the closure is called "Mr Rich":

Those cultural shifts have affected the entire teen entertainment magazine market, which has seen a sales decline of 30% over the past three years. Advertising revenues have deteriorated as the food and drink industry curbed advertising to under-18s, in response to government warnings about marketing sugary snacks. Over the past three years the number of drinks adverts in teenage entertainment magazines has declined from 50 pages per year to four. As a consequence, advertising revenues at Smash Hits have nearly halved over the same period.

Mr Rich said the Smash Hits brand would live on as a digital radio station and a music TV channel, but its parent company would not pump cash into an ailing print title.