The New Musical Express is having a bit of a revamp, with a new cover design that makes the whole thing look a bit like The Word magazine in my mind, but perhaps that's just me; though I think it certainly looks more serious.

The revamp extends to more than just the cover, with a host of new features being added to the indie rock weekly, including 'The Main Event' reviewing the big music news story of the week, 'Talking Head' featuring artists and NME journalists giving some opinions, and 'First Night, On The Road' and 'In the Studio' providing behind the scenes reports from gigs and recording sessions.

The rework, while presumably partly designed to combat the continued slump in the number of people buying the indie brand's flagship print product, also marks the first serious stamp on the magazine to be made by Krissi Murison, who became editor of the IPC-owned music title last year

She says this: "When I took this role I had very clear ideas about what I wanted to do with the magazine. The new NME is significantly different, with a much more mature and aspirational design, and content which focuses on being in-depth, opinionated and above all knowledgeable. We listened carefully to what music fans want from their NME - and delivered a weekly must-have for anyone who is obsessed with music, regardless of age".

The relaunch edition will be available with a choice of different covers, with Jack White, Rihanna, Kasabian, Foals, MIA, Magnetic Man, Florence And The Machine, LCD Soundsystem, Laura Marling and Biffy Clyro featuring on different editions.

It remains to be seen if the revamp, which will be accompanied by a high profile ad campaign, can turn round the mag's declining readership. With all its many spin offs, the future of the NME brand seems more assured than most in the traditional media, though if sales of the weekly magazine continue to fall it will presumably reach a point where the print edition is such a loss leader that management would have to ask if the brand could live on without the print product. Though that decision is presumably someway off as yet.

Meanwhile, go look at the revamped cover design at one of the following links:
community.brandrepublic.com/photos/nme_covers_april/images/69647/438x438.aspx
community.brandrepublic.com/photos/nme_covers_april/images/69648/438x438.aspx

Talking of all those NME spin offs, a new NME-branded festival has been announced, very much based around the All Tomorrows' Parties model, and due to take place at the Pontins holiday park in Camber Sands, Sussex. The first ever NME Weekender will take place from 5-7 Nov and both Babyshambles and British Sea Power have already been confirmed for the bill.

NME have appointed a new Deputy Editor, Martin Robinson. He was previously a freelancer who contributed to Wired, Shortlist and FHM as well as NME.

NME Editor Krissi Murison told CMU: "Martin has been a core contributor to NME for some time now, and I am absolutely thrilled to welcome him onto the team full-time in such a prominent role at such a crucial time as we prepare to unveil some exciting changes".

Robinson added: "I'm chuffed to bits to have bagged my dream job and be joining Krissi and the team at NME. The magazine has already improved dramatically under Krissi's editorship and is about to step up to a whole new level. I'm delighted that I'm going to be a part of it".

A new music recommendation service called mflow has announced a number of media partnerships ahead of its April launch.

mflow is a bit like a music-specific version of Twitter, users can recommend favourite tracks to their followers, who can then stream the recommended track in full once and, if they like it, buy the track, all via the one mflow widget. The recommender then gets 20% of the download fee as a credit to spend on other music recommended to them by the people s/he follows. The service has been in beta for a while, and will properly launch next month.

The media partnerships are with Bauer titles Q, Kerrang! and Mojo plus the NME and Clash, and will see the digital firm profiled across those partners' media. Each media will also start recommending top tunes via mflow. 

mflow marketing man Atan Burrows told Creative Business: "Reaching users through major music titles is a key part of our marketing strategy pre-launch. The titles we are partnering with are all trusted sources and play a vital role in the recommendation of new music. [And] all the titles we will be working with will also have their own profiles on mflow, which will allow them to recommend and share new music with their readers".

Mojo is the now the biggest paid-for music magazine in the UK. In the latest round of ABC magazine circulation figures, published this week, the Bauer-owned monthly scored an average circulation of 98,484, putting it ahead of sister title Q, which now sells 94,811 copies each month (though, interestingly Mojo has a higher mail-order subscriber base than Q, which means when it comes to music mags actually sold at newsagents, Q is actually still bigger).

Both Mojo and Q nevertheless saw their circulation figures fall year on year, a common theme across the printed music media. IPC's NME and Uncut, other Bauer title Kerrang!, Development Hell-owned Word and Mixmag, and even a recent success story in the music press, Future Publishing's Metal Hammer, all saw their ABC figures fall too. In fact, in terms of newsstand titles, only Future's other music mag, Classic Rock, had a good ABC result; they saw their circulation rise 1.3%.

MAMA Group-owned freebie The Fly remains the biggest magazine in terms of circulation, with 108,906 copies now going out each month.

The Advertising Standards Authority has criticised the NME for running an ad for fashion house Fly53, which featured a man gripping another guy by the throat and pointing a gun to his head. The cartoony ad was based around Fly53's ongoing shtick of "confessing your fashion crimes".

The brand and the mag denied the ad glamorised gun crime, saying it was aimed at an "educated, creative and intelligent young market" who wouldn't infer any sinister messages from the artwork (NME readers educated, creative and intelligent? Yes, of course they are, you doubters you).

But the ASA said the ad was "aggressive and threatening" and had a "menacing atmosphere" and should never have been published in the music weekly.