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Smashed hits

So farewell then, Smash Hits. The mag that thrilled generations of teens is no more. Sara Millsanalyses what went wrong.Smash Hits was one of the biggest music magazines of the last century. Started in 1978, it came out every

fortnight, to gasps of delight from teenagers all across Britain, eager to get hold of the latest pull-out posters of

their favourite star and to read the lyrics of the number one song. But in February 2006, Smash Hits published itslast ever print magazine. Why did a product that was once so successful lose its popularity to the extent that it

was closed down? Was it death by neglect, ignored by the new generation of teenagers, or was it slowly eaten

alive by the ever-hungry, ever-expanding internet? It could have been a terminal lack of cool that killed it, or

perhaps it was just a casualty in another war: a victim of the lobby against junk food advertising.

But whatever the cause, teenagers stopped buying Smash Hits, no longer wanting their fortnightly fix of song

lyrics, posters of pops latest pin-ups and the latest poptastic news. But interest in music is as strong as ever:

Radio 1 plays to huge audiences, bands have sellout tours and MTV has spawned a whole genre of music TV,

and other print magazines have ridden the storm: the NME, Kerrang! mixmag and Mojo all still sell well. So why

not Smash Hits ?

Smash Hits circulation started falling in the early 90s. It just didnt appeal to its core audience enough any more.

Perhaps it stopped fulfilling their needs. Thinking about it in terms of Blumler and Katzs Uses and Gratifications,or Four Needs Theory may help to unpick the problem.

A key function of music magazines is to inform their audience. This fits into Blumler and Katzs idea of

surveillance, with the music magazine providing information and insight that the teen just cant get anywhere

else. Once, that was true. There was nowhere else to find out what Kylies latest hairstyle was, or if she was

really going outwith Jason Donovan. And certainly the song lyrics were invaluable for any teenager who wanted

to learn them and sing along in the mirror. The listings pages and reviews of singles and albums were crucial.

Over the years, the content of Smash Hits remained the same: the same information, the same opportunity to

satisfy the need for surveillance, but overtaking it on the outside lane came something much faster: the internet. It

was like a Porsche overtaking a tractor. Nowadays, you dont have to wait two weeks to find out about music

with the advent of broadband, even 2 seconds can seem an unreasonably long time. Theres more information

and interviews and reviews about music than we could ever have dreamed of 20 years ago, and its all availablein your bedroom, and, most importantly, instantly. So while Smash Hits did still satisfy the need for information,

perhaps it just did so slowly and so badly that no-one was interested anymore.

Music is sometimes seen as more important than anything to teenagers as a way of defining their style and

image. Whether you listen to Marilyn Manson or to Girls Aloud says a huge amount about what kind of person

you see yourself as. In some cases, liking Eminen or Muse can almost amount to a tribal identity, signalling

membership of a certain sub-culture. So what you read and buy in relation to music also reflects your sense of

personal identity, another of Blumler and Katzs four needs. If you buy Kerrang!youre signalling that you are a

different kind of person from those who buy mixmag. The image of the stars and musicians, the mode of address

and advertising, are all geared to the niche audience of the magazine. Readers of mixmag are bombarded with

images of suntanned girls, cheap flights and big party scenes, all focusing around the idea of the reader being

someone who goes to Ibiza and dances all night. Even if youve never been further away than Southend or

Skegness, it doesnt matter. You aspire to go to Ibiza you are the kind of person who might, who could, andwho is just as cool as the people who actually do go there.

But what if you read Smash Hits? Who are you then? Well, you are probably a 12-year-old girl. And not many of

us aspire to be 12-year-old girls. Especially not 13-year-old girls, and extra especially not boys. So who wants to

be a 12 year old girl? Mainly, 11-year-old girls. In terms of aspirational reflections of personal identity, Smash Hits

had a very narrow group to aim at. Once it targeted both boys and girls. Back in the early days, it was a credible

music magazine, featuring a wide range of bands, punk and indie as well as pop. But then the marketers noticed

that more girls than boys actually bought Smash Hits. And in a cunning plan to expand their readership, they

aimed the magazine more and more towards girls. What they actually achieved was to alienate a huge number of

their readers, boys and tomboys among them. The magazine began its slide towards pre-teen girliness, and once

that image was constructed, its audience was limited.

What kind of personal relationship or companionship can Smash Hits offer its audience? Magazines have alwaystried to get their audience to form a bond with the magazine: to write in with readers letters, with problems and

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questions, to enter competitions and vote in readers polls. All these serve to draw the reader closer to the brand

values of the magazine, to keep them loyal. So if you really love a band, you can write in, and stand maybe a 1 in

a 1000 chance of getting your letter published, probably about three months later. It was good at the time, but

then along came something much, much better: the internet, with its chat rooms, its fansites, its MySpace and its

instant messaging. Suddenly you could access the actual people you wanted to talk to, not just write in to the

middle man of a magazine. The idea of a personal relationship with other fans and like-minded people, or even

with the band themselves, becomes real.

Lastly Smash Hits, like all other magazines, promised entertainment and diversion; a few moments away from

the boredom of everyday life. Once, in world before iPods, before home computers, TVs in every room, before

emails and downloads, video games and MSN, a teenagers bedroom was a pretty lonely and isolated place.

There wasnt really much to do; so a magazine was genuinely exciting. Learn the song lyrics, put the poster of

Take That on your wallthey were good times! But now, it just cant compete. There are so many more ways to

be entertained. Particularly in relation to music, which is an aural as well as a visual medium, multi-media sites

enable us to hear, as well as read about, the music, to see the performances instead of just looking at a poster.

On all four aspects of the Four Needs theory, Smash Hits got overtaken and outperformed. It may be that other

music magazines survive because they keep doing some things well. NME, for instance, is no more or less

entertaining to its readers than Smash Hits was to its readers, but it does offer a positive personal identity as well.

Perhaps music magazines have to satisfy more than one of the four needs to remain successful products.

The social context for Smash Hits has changed too. We cant blame everything on Jamie Oliver: the battle

against junk food had begun before Jamies School Dinners. But a government push against advertising high fat

high sugar snacks and drinks to under-18s made a huge dent in the advertising revenue of Smash Hits and other

teen mags. Magazines like Heat and Nuts, arguably as popular with teens as with anyone, are exempt from such

government pressure, as they are not directly targeted at under-18s. So Smash Hits took a side blow that hit its

income hard, collateral damage in the war on obesity.

In terms of its economic context, Smash Hits may well have lost audience as its USP became less and less

unique in the market place. Competition from other print media, copying aspects of its early success, may have

gradually squeezed Smash Hits share of the market. If you read Smash Hits for the interviews with stars, for the

photos and pop news, you are likely to be stolen away by the rather more adult pleasures of the celebrity gossip

magazine, especially as they were unconstrained by the moral codes and decency expected of a teen mag. If i t

was the news and information you liked, the tabloid press could satisfy you as they began to regularly feature

news about pop personalities, along with all the other soft news stories. And if it was the song lyrics you wanted,

perhaps the nature of music itself killed this one off. The dance music explosion and rise of the DJ in the 90s leda dearth of songs with proper lyrics. Without a USP, Smash Hits share of the market declined.

From a high point of up to 1 milllion copies an issue in the late 1980s, Smash Hits finished with a readership of

just 120,000 for its last issue.

A magazine like Kerrang! is still successful (see page 62), perhaps because the mainstream media havent

trodden on its toes to same extent. Kerrang! does still feature news and information that isnt easily available

elsewhere. Catering to a niche and non-mainstream audience has been useful in helping it stay unique.

So what really killed Smash Hits? Was it failing to satisfy its audiences needs or changes in the social and

economic context? Whatever the answer, Smash Hits has become a dusty relic of a bygone age: a time when life

was so dull that learning the lyrics to a Take That song seemed like a great way to spend your evening. It will be

spoken of with nostalgia by the generation of people who still bought records on vinyl, watched Top of The Pops

every week, and couldnt have imagined there would ever be any other way to get as close to the stars as byreading Smash Hits.