When Cover Publications launched International Musician and Recording World in 1975, its immediate success was based on active involvement with every aspect of creative music. IM&RW was for the musicians, the studios, the stores, the manufacturers and the ideas men who made music the most dynamic and exciting area of leisure publishing.

IM&RW still is. Cover Publications, now spearheading media for the world's music makers, have never deviated from championing the interests of the industry as a whole.

Backing the Music Industry

The pictures on these pages were all taken at Cover Publications' 'Live at Ronnie Scott's' evening mounted in conjunction with the AMI at the 1984 British Music Fair. Members of the music industry from professional musicians to dealers and manufacturers were asked to join Cover Publications staff in an informal 'jam session' at this famous venue. The response was overwhelming.

Commitment

Success in the Music Industry is impossible without commitment to the music industry. Cover Publications has lived through good times and tough times with the rest of the major M.I. companies. Other publishers have come and gone. Paper shifting conglomerates can never get a real foothold in the music world because their roots are not in the music world. There will always be dabblers and Johnny-Come-Latelies, but the future lies in a publishing house with vision and with staying power. A company like Cover Publications which has credibility with the big retail news multiples and can get music titles the prominence they deserve.

Expansion

Newsstand revenue for Cover Publications' first year was around £50,000. Today, the group of companies which grew from those beginnings has a world newsstand revenue approaching £7 million and a significant proportion of that comes from music titles. International Musician is published as far away as America, Australia and Japan and at home What Keyboard? is the standard title in the consumer keyboard market. Electronic Soundmaker and Computer Music is pioneering a new magazine/cassette tape formula, while the poster magazine Freeze Frame makes a bid for the visually conscious young.

Integrity

International Musician and Recording World is still the only monthly music title with ABC audited circulation (applications to the ABC bureau from What Keyboard? and Electronic Soundmaker are pending). The ABC or Audit Bureau of Circulation is the only accurate and officially recognised way of accrediting the circulation of a magazine. Remarkably; none of those who allege their circulations bear comparison with ours ever use ABC to authenticate their claims.

Re-Investment

The Music Industry has endorsed Cover Publications by making it the largest and most successful publishing house ever to operate in the field. Cover Publications has a policy to repay this compliment by injecting money and resources into new projects to revitalise the industry. Magazines themselves are important in doing this. New ventures in audio tape for Electronic Soundmaker and a planned Video series for International Musician publicise creative music in new media. Links are being made with the educational establishment to promote creative music where it counts — in the schools.

Energy

Some markets exist, some need discovering, still others need to be made. Whichever category you put music marketing in, there can be no doubt that activity can be heightened by a positive approach to sales and promotion. Cover Publications is a young, aggressive team prepared to go all out not only for competition within the industry, but to expand the industry as a whole. Shallow based, passive leisure pursuits can threaten music because the consumer is influenced by superficial ideas skilfully marketed. But we believe creative music is the stronger product and, with the right backing, has a strong future.

Cover Publications employs around forty people at Northern & Shell's new world headquarters in the London Enterprise Zone.

Everyone in the company, from the Chairman to the tea-boy, has a background of active involvement in creative music. The majority play and practise regularly, and this is as true today as it was nearly a decade ago when International Musician first hit the streets.

Cover Publications represents a group of people whose future is completely tied in to the future of our industry.

If we ever sound over-enthusiastic and even forceful in expressing our views on direction and strategy, that's why.

If we sound as though we're making sense, perhaps you'd like to join your commitment, investment and energy to ours. Cover Publications are planning a seminar on 'A Direction and Strategy for Marketing in the Music Industry' to be held at the Northern & Shell Building this Winter.

If you're interested in attending or wish to contribute ideas or declare your support contact Lynne Farndale on (Contact Details).

Cover Publications Ltd.