Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog magazines have been rescued by their former owner, Future plc, a profitable and stable media business listed on the London Stock Exchange.
All three magazines and their associated websites were threatened with closure the week before Christmas when previous owners TeamRock went into administration, with the loss of 73 jobs. The news prompted an online campaign from Orange Goblin frontman Ben Ward who set up a JustGiving page to raise money for affected staff. With a target of £20,000, the campaign reached £78,000 in five days and now stands at £85,000. Support came from across the music business, with Queen, Rush, Avenged Sevenfold, Machine Head, Halestorm, Black Stone Cherry, Frank Turner and more making donations and pledging support.
Now Future – the publisher of Total Film as well as musicians titles Guitarist, Total Guitar and Rhythm and the MusicRadar website – has acquired the magazines, domain names, events, radio license and websites of Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Prog, The Blues and (Metal Hammer awards show) The Golden Gods.
“The Editors and Art Editors of the brands are already back on board to help restart where we left off,” says Paul Newman, Editorial Director. “We hope to contact other former editorial staff and contributors in the near future and will provide an update about our intentions as and when we can.”
Right now, everyone is working hard to get the next issues in production and get back to business as usual. The latest issues of Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog were finished before the TeamRock news broke and are in the shops now and en route to subscribers.
Scott Rowley, Editor In Chief (Rock Titles), commented: “The last few weeks have been an absolute rollercoaster, first with the devastating news about TeamRock and then with the overwhelming response to that news – Ben Ward’s amazing campaign and the messages of support the whole team has received ever since.
“TeamRock talked a lot about the power and the passion of the rock community, but the response to the company’s closure really showed what that looked like. We’re indebted to you all and won’t let you down.”
INFORMATION FOR MAGAZINE SUBSCRIBERS
- Future will be honouring existing subscriptions. All of the latest editions have now been sent out so, while they’ll be a few days later than expected, everyone who was due to get the latest issues of Classic Rock, Prog and Metal Hammer should receive one.
- It will take us a couple of weeks to bring in and sort their customer and payment details – understandably, we need to follow all the necessary precautions to keep your data secure, and your Direct Debit payments in place so you won’t need to resubscribe.
- As soon as we can, we’ll be in touch by letter and/or email, to confirm the new customer service numbers, and payment references for Direct Debit subscribers.
- New subscriptions: sign up to be notified at My Favourite Magazines.
For any subscription enquiries, email contact@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Read Classic Rock, Metal Hammer & Prog for free with TeamRock+
