Smash Hits and We Love Pop Magazines

Smash Hits

Basic Facts

Pop genre magazine

·      Ran from 1978 to 2006

·      Founded by Nick Logan who previously edited NME.

·      Was originally monthly starting in November 1978 but switched to fortnightly after 3 issues.

·      The USP of the original magazines were that they featured the Top 20 song lyrics in each issue.

·      Owned by Egmont.

The magazine hit its peak in the 80’s when it started the careers of many journalists including Mark Frith who now edits Heat. In the 1990’s magazines like Big! took most of Smash Hits readers because they featured more about other celebrities as well as TV shows not just music. This made it more of a general entertainment magazine, which offered more than just a music magazine. It has a TV and website spin off which has survived the demise of the magazine.

We Love Pop

Basic Facts

·      Launched on 20^th July 2011 costing £1 (Usual price £2.99)

·      Main target audience of 13-15 year old girls

·      Edited by Malcolm Mackenzie, former editor of free newspaper TheLondonPaper.

·      Includes a rolling news blog on it’s website, a Twitter page, a Facebook page and YouTube channel.

·      Also owned by Egmont.

With pop music being the dominant genre of music for the present teen girl Egmont saw a gap for a new magazine which features all the aspects of teenage life for a girl with all the new technological breakthroughs added making the magazine more accessible because of the online aspects. Publisher Siobhan Galvin said ‘The focus that We Love Pop placed on launching a brand that utilises multi-platforms, along with our in-depth research, allows us to give the readers a truly integrated experience’ Strong traffic has been recorded since the launch of We Love Pop on their Twitter and Facebook pages as well as their YouTube channel.