The music press isn’t dead
News that Q, the self-titled “world’s greatest music magazine”, is closing after 34 years has renewed conversations about the UK print music press. For many, the closure of Q confirms it: the music press is dying. It’s a narrative that has been on the tips of tongues since the development of digital media and advertising in the early 2000s, one that has seemed inevitable following reports of declining print sales year on year since 2007, and was deemed near enough certain when NME first became a free title in 2015 and then ended its print edition entirely in 2018.