The SOS Publications Group, publishers of Sound On Sound and Sound On Sound USA magazines and the Sound On Sound website, has today acquired the premier UK musicians’ magazine Music Mart and its related website (formerly owned by Trinity Publications Ltd, part of the Trinity Mirror plc group).
SOS takes responsibility for all editorial and advertising bookings from and including the SEPTEMBER 2006 edition. All production of the magazine will immediately move to SOS’s Cambridge headquarters commencing with the September 2006 edition, which will be the first issue published by SOS (on sale 25 August).
Please note: all payments for past invoices up to and including the AUGUST 2006 issue should continue to be made to Trinity Publications in Birmingham, England.
Magazine & Website
SOS plans to grow Music Mart both in pagination and copy sales to deliver even better value for money to its loyal readership and advertising customers. The quarterly Live Sound supplement previously given away with Sound On Sound magazine will cease and instead be rolled into Music Mart on a monthly basis to expand its unique live sound editorial and allow greater capacity and frequency for PA-related product reviews, a core area of the magazine.
Strategically, an equal emphasis will be placed editorially on both the music making and gear-buying aspects of the magazine, and to better reflect this, the September edition will undergo a redesign and feature a new masthead logo.
In ensuing months the magazine will incorporate new editorial sections to widen its appeal and emphasise the new and secondhand gear market, with regular buyers’ guides, gig listings and musician wanted ads designed to make Music Mart the one-stop shop essential read for the gigging musician/band.
Music Mart along with Sound On Sound will play an important role as sponsor of the forthcoming Music Live exhibition in Birmingham this November, and Sounds Expo in early 2007, putting on a full complement of live sound, music business, recording and computer music-related seminars at each event.
Naturally, a revamped Music Mart website is in the pipeline which will fill in the missing pieces of the jigsaw and integrate with the hugely popular SOS website, which currently attracts over 450,000 unique users (1.5 million page iimpressions) each month. Through communication with this global user base of musicians we are convinced that exposure to the broader subject matter of Music Mart, presented with the renowned SOS approach to insightful and informative editorial, quality design and presentation will pay dividends for readers looking for unbiased, independent editorial advice and articles that they can rely upon to assist in their gear-purchasing and music-making endeavours, and that’s going to be good news for the entire industry too, creating as it will a powerful centralised platform for promotion to this readerbase.
For more information, visit their web site at www.soundonsound.com.
