British publishing company Team Rock “went into administration” officially this week, following layoffs of nearly its entire staff. This is essentially the UK equivalent of bankruptcy; the company is currently retaining a small handful of administrators to assist in liquidating the company’s assets. This is extremely bad news for three music magazines you may subscribe to: Classic Rock, Prog, and Metal Hammer, or more likely, read online as Teamrock.
The Daily Record goes into a bit more of the minutiae of the situation, but the Cliff Notes version is that Team Rock has been gradually losing huge sums of money over the last few years, culminating in approximately £11.7 of total debt at the end of 2015, and had no other option but to declare bankruptcy. There hasn’t been any official news regarding the states of those magazines yet. However, Team Rock stated that “The administration presents an excellent opportunity to acquire high profile rock music titles, products and brands that have a substantial global following. The brands and assets could appeal to a music publishing business looking to expand its portfolio, or an entrepreneur that sees the potential for developing the brands.”
So, if there’s any independent, eccentric millionaires in the metal world that might be reading this, now’s your chance to keep Metal Hammer afloat for the rest of us. If it indeed ends, as it seems like it probably will, it will end 30 years as an entity for Metal Hammer as a magazine.
