About NME Australia

NME Australia

NME Australia is the Australian edition of NME (New Musical Express), the British music and pop-culture brand established in 1952. Launched digitally in December 2019 and in print in May 2020 by Singapore-based BandLab Technologies, it was the publication's first dedicated channel outside the United Kingdom — and notably, Australia became the only country in the world to get a regular NME print magazine after the UK edition's print run was axed in 2018.

Overview

NME Australia provides dedicated Australian music and culture news coverage, regular longform features on emerging and established Australian artists, reviews, and events. The digital edition lives at nme.com/australia, staffed by a combination of NME's global writing team in London and Singapore and Australian writers covering the scene locally. The print edition launched as a monthly, 72-page magazine available by mail order, bypassing newsagencies.

History

NME — the New Musical Express — was established in 1952 in the UK and became one of the world's dominant music publications. In May 2019, Singapore's BandLab Technologies acquired the global rights to the NME brand (along with Uncut), and that December launched NME Australia as a standalone brand extension — the first dedicated NME channel outside Britain.

The launch was fronted by Melbourne punk band Amyl and the Sniffers as inaugural cover stars, with editor Charlotte Gunn conducting a no-holds-barred cover interview touching on feminism, climate change and catharsis in dire political times. "NME has long been recognised as one of the world's leading authorities in music and pop culture, known for our distinctive voice and point of view," said Meng Ru Kuok, CEO of BandLab Technologies. "We're excited to be opening a new platform for Australian artists, both established and emerging, as well as a channel for brands to engage with an audience of music lovers in Australia and globally. With the launch of our stand-alone brand extension in Australia, our team's best writers will be shining a spotlight on the artists and stories coming out of one of the world's most compelling music scenes."

The audience arrived quickly. Within six months of launch the site had quadrupled its traffic to 500,000 unique monthly Australian visitors — "beyond our expectations," Kuok said — with most readers under 34, an even genre split and a slight male skew, clicking daily for Australian and international news, reviews and features. Australia had long been the title's third-biggest market in the world, and the launch also brought Australia-exclusive categories to the 2020 NME Awards: Best Album, Best Song, Best Solo Act, Best Band, Best New Artist and Best Festival.

The print launch followed in May 2020. "Since the launch of our NME Australia site in December 2019, we've seen huge interest from fans, artists and the music industry," Kuok said. "While the print edition in the UK is still on hiatus, we decided there was nowhere better to re-introduce print than Australia. It's a big country with one of the most dynamic music scenes in the world right now." The debut print issue — initial run under 10,000 copies, mail-order only — put Tash Sultana on the cover, with features on Mallrat's debut album, Cable Ties on making music in dangerous times, and UK rapper Riz Ahmed on his album The Long Goodbye. Australian contributors to the first issue included Luke Buckmaster, Kate Hennessy, Ian Laidlaw, Brodie Lancaster, Kara Eva Schlegl, Andrew P Street and Cyclone Wehner. The launch made Australia the only country with a regular NME print magazine; in Britain it appeared only as an occasional special. (Both debut local covers of the rival launches — Sultana for NME, Tones and I for the relaunched Rolling Stone Australia — were managed by Regan Lethbridge and David Morgan at Lemon Tree Music.)

The Australian operation's success had international consequences: in August 2020, BandLab launched NME Asia out of Singapore, explicitly on the back of the Australian edition's performance. The BandLab NME Awards 2022 added all-new Asia-exclusive categories alongside returning Australian categories, with Australian nominees including Amyl and the Sniffers, Baker Boy, Genesis Owusu, Gang of Youths, King Stingray and The Kid LAROI.

The NME Awards' Australian categories

The launch gave Australian artists a new international stage through the NME Awards. The 2020 awards debuted Australia-exclusive categories — Best Album, Best Song, Best Solo Act, Best Band, Best New Artist and Best Festival — and the BandLab NME Awards 2022 brought five of them back alongside all-new Asia-exclusive categories, at a ceremony held on 2 March 2022 at London's O2 Academy Brixton. The Australian shortlists read as a snapshot of the country's music at the time: Best Australian Album nominees included Alice Skye's I Feel Better But I Don’t Feel Good, Amyl and the Sniffers' Comfort To Me, Baker Boy's Gela, Genesis Owusu's Smiling With No Teeth and Ngaiire's 3, while Best Australian Song pitted Gang of Youths' 'The Man Himself' against Miiesha's 'Damaged', King Stingray's 'Get Me Out', The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber's global smash 'Stay', and Tkay Maidza and Baby Tate's 'Kim'. The awards, sponsored by BandLab's social music creation platform, cemented the Australian edition's role as a bridge between the local scene and NME's worldwide audience.

Content and Features

NME Australia covers music and pop culture with the brand's distinctive voice: daily news, longform features on Australian artists emerging and established, album and live reviews, interviews, and event coverage. The digital launch promised "dedicated music and culture news coverage, regular longform features on emerging and established Australian artists, and events," and the print edition extended that into a collectible monthly package. The NME Awards' Australian categories have become a fixture of the local industry calendar.

The edition's editorial mix — Australian breaking news and longform sitting alongside the global network's international coverage — reflects its dual mandate: a local scene publication with the resources and reach of a world-famous masthead. Events, promised from the December 2019 launch as part of the brand extension, have been part of the offering since the first year.

Coverage and Audience

Based in Sydney, NME Australia serves a national audience of music fans, skewing under 34, alongside NME's global readership. The site's half-million monthly Australian readers at the 2020 peak made it one of the country's most-read music publications. Coverage balances Australian stories with international music news from the global NME network.

Ownership

NME Australia is owned and published by BandLab Technologies, the Singapore-based music-technology company led by CEO Meng Ru Kuok, which acquired the global NME brand rights in 2019. BandLab Technologies also owns the social music creation platform BandLab. Further ownership and financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The edition's digital home is nme.com/australia, supported by NME Australia accounts on Instagram, Twitter/X and other social platforms. The site publishes daily Australian and international music news, reviews and features, drawing on both the local team and NME's global writers in London and Singapore.

Sources and Further Reading

• NME, "NME Australia launches with inaugural cover stars Amyl And The Sniffers" — the December 2019 digital launch.
• AdNews, "Music platform NME launches in Australia" — launch details and BandLab background.
• Mediaweek, "NME in print: Second major music brand launching local print edition" — the May 2020 print launch.
• The Music Network, "NME will launch an Australian print edition next month" — print run, contributors and market context.
• B&T, "NME To Launch Print Mag In Australia" — BandLab's acquisition and launch quotes.