NME has launched NME Emerging, a new artist services platform designed to help up and coming acts.
Hosted on the music title’s website, NME.com, NME Emerging will help new acts gain visibility and earn money, while maintaining full rights and royalties via TuneCore.
The initiative will afford artists the chance to be heard by NME and the 10 million unique users that visit its website each month. Artists can create a profile for free, from which they can share music, videos, social media feeds and gig details.
Using NME’s Merch store, users can design their own T-shirts to sell at gigs or for fans to buy on demand. NME’s partnership with TuneCore means artists are able to distribute their music with an exclusive NME discount. Artists will be able to sell and stream music across more than 150 digital music stores - including Apple Music, Google Play and Spotify. Uploading original tracks and videos into NME Emerging gives artists the opportunity to boost views and downloads.
Research carried out by NME, which is published by Time Inc, into the challenges facing new artists revealed that playing live is the most effective tool for growing a fanbase (51%), with social media (26%) in second place.
The survey also found that only 45% of respondents are making profit from their music, with 79% supplementing income in other ways, mainly through salaried roles.
Finally, it revealed that 79% of those polled that do earn money from their music are generating less than £250 per month, while 53% invest more than that amount into their music each month.
Charlotte Gunn, NME digital editor, said: “NME has supported grassroots talent for 65 years with acts like Coldplay and The Killers championed by NME at the start of their careers. Our commitment has never been stronger and the NME Emerging platform is a brand new way to connect artists with the NME team. If we like what we hear, we’ll be writing about them, putting them in the magazine or even inviting them to play a gig. We can’t wait to get stuck in and discover some great new acts.”
Richard Giddings, head of new product development, Time Inc. UK, adds: “Spending time with artists brought to light what their pressure points are, where the opportunities lay for them and where NME can help. We’ve built NME Emerging out of those conversations to give artists what they need and the response so far has been really positive. This is a great new route for emerging artists to reach the NME team and for our partners to tap into an audience of passionate music fans and work with artists.”
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