Brit Music Mag Ankles After Bad 1st Week
Curmudgeons of the world, unite and laugh: POPWORLD PULP magazine, a tie-in publication with a British music TV show, has hit the newsstands only to have them hit back. If you liked the first issue cherish it, because there won’t be a second.
According to vengeful Channel 4 rival, the BBC:
The first issue of the music magazine, which was linked with Channel 4’s Popworld show, had an initial print run of 130,000 copies but sold just 9,000. Darren Styles of the Brooklands Group publishers said: “The magazine has bombed in a way nobody connected with it could ever have envisaged.”
The magazine had been in development for more than a year and had been heavily trailed on TV, radio and the internet.
In your FACE, market research guys!
Mr Styles said: “Every piece of research we did, every dummy we created and the concept in all its forms was fantastically received from first to last. “The industry wanted it, the news trade wanted it, the market was there according to every group we asked - but come the acid test the readers were absent.”
Can we please, PLEASE, use this story to prove that money spent on pretesting entertainment is just a waste? People in the business use surveys and screenings in an attempt to convince themselves that they’re not taking an enormous chance by committing to a project. All that research money could have gone into… I don’t know, free blow for the gaffers. A new car for the producer’s girlfriend, the one he didn’t cast in the lead. Something useful.
Showbiz is a business, the same way that tournament poker is a profession. Embrace that. If you’re looking for a sure bet, pick up a copy of Pulp. It will be worth something in 10 years.