How many times have you seen references to Nine Inch Nails and My Little Pony in the same feature?! We love finding out more about the people who make the music industry a place of passion and commitment, and this week I (Matt) enjoyed a frank and enlightening conversation with Stuart Williams, Managing Director (Music) at Future plc, MIA Board member and an evangelist for great music.
Tell us about your role at Future.
I am the MD of two divisions at Future plc, one of the UK’s biggest media owners. The company is quite sprawling now – we have 250 brands from Country Life to TV Times, Marie Claire to Rugby World – but I look after 16 brands which cover music and 9 on photography & the creative industries. I’m responsible for the overall brand strategy, editorial content and delivery of the P&L. The reason I love it is that both sides of the brain get exercise – one minute I’m looking at data analytics, the next I’m debating the colour of a headline on a magazine cover. I work with a lot of enthusiastic and talented people – I’m very lucky.
What led you to work in music journalism/publishing?
Well, obviously, I did a degree in chemistry. It was a four-year course split between Canterbury in Kent and Vienna in Austria. I spent most of the time, though, helping to run the university music society, which organised everything from a 26-piece chamber choir to a 100-piece orchestra. I also used to send gig reviews in, unsolicited, to Kerrang! and Q magazines; one day they agreed to publish one (Radiohead at the Penny Theatre, Canterbury!) and one thing led to another. I’ve done various roles in editorial, marketing and commercial.
I still can’t believe I’ve been lucky enough to spend nearly three decades working in music – for most people it’s their private passion. I consider it a privilege to work in this industry but, secretly, I’m on a mission from God to help people listen to good music, not the majority of the rubbish that’s out there.
In a multimedia world and with so much digital content, much of it freely available, how do you see the position of music magazines?
Our business is a lot more complicated now than it was 15 years ago. We have diversified into digital media, social platforms, live events, e-commerce, audio and video. Magazines are 30-40% of our revenue now – we make more money digitally and the audiences there are much bigger – but print is very much at the heart of most of our brands. Magazine circulations took a tumble a decade ago but if you’re still reading a magazine in 2023 it’s because you love what they do for you. 98% of our digital consumers only read one story online a month but a magazine reader will invest 3-4 hours in every issue – they love the in-depth stories, expert reviews and brilliant photography. The more niche the better, too. 15 years ago most music magazines were reaching into the mainstream but now it’s all about hyper-niches like prog rock, classic rock and heavy metal. Our guitar and music tech magazine editors are true experts in their field – readers can sense that and appreciate the communities that we build and foster.
Tell us about the range of titles you oversee.
We sub-divide the portfolio into music making, music listening and B2B. In music making we have the biggest guitar brands in the world (Guitar World, Guitar Player, Guitarist, Total Guitar, Guitar Techniques and Bass Player) – which are magazines in their own right and come under the GuitarWorld.combanner online. We have an amazing archive dating back to the 1960s which we can plunder – you name them, we’ve probably interviewed them at some point. From Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughan and everyone in between.
We then have MusicRadar.com, which is the world’s biggest site for musicians, recording artists and producers, with Future Music and Computer Music magazines covering the hardware and software of music production. In music listening we have Classic Rock, Prog and Metal Hammer magazines, all market leaders in themselves, which come together as Loudersound.com, the world’s biggest rock website.
Last but not least is Music Week, the document of the UK record industry since 1959. The Music Week Awards and Women In Music events are the Oscars of the industry. Our audience has grown considerably over recent years and we now make twice as much revenue in North America as we do in the UK. We have to fight for every reader but it’s worth it.
Why should MI retailers and manufacturers care about music journalism?
Good question! Journalism of all kinds is under attack on a number of fronts – tyrannical governments, unregulated social media, a proliferation of bad information, scrappy artificial intelligence to name just a few. You can’t replace proper journalism, though; people who know their stuff, whose enthusiasm is rooted in experience and passion, can take an objective view without commercial bias and run a thorough testing process. Many of our music making journalists come from a MI retail background – that’s a deliberate approach in our recruitment because we want people who know what a customer is looking for, even if they can’t immediately express it. AI may be a horseman of the apocalypse for journalists at some point in the future but right now it’s a My Little Pony.
If you had to pick one memorable gig and one favourite album, what would they be?
Ask me again in half an hour and I’ll give you a different answer but I’ll say Guns N’ Roses/Metallica at Giants Stadium, New Jersey in July 1992. Truly awe-inspiring – three hours of unbridled energy and vitality . The magnificent darkness of Nine Inch Nails on The Other Stage at Glastonbury 2000 was pretty spectacular too – it seemed that everyone else had gone to see The Chemical Brothers on the Pyramid Stage and I and a handful of friends had NIN to ourselves. Equally, I’ll remember until the day I die seeing Nina Simone play one of her last ever shows at the BIshopstock Festival in Devon in 2001. (You did ask for three, didn’t you?)
Album – impossible question but I will never ever tire of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love. Its 47 minutes will leave you elated, intrigued, terrified and restored every time. I know every sound on that record and yet it never fails to surprise. It was her comeback album – her fifth studio album, would you believe – and she was just 26 when she recorded it! At 26 I could barely answer the phone.
