The Music Magazine closes

A national website based in the North East has been closed down by the Sunderland student who created it two and a half years ago.

The Music Magazine featured reviews of the latest albums as well as interviews with bands and features on the state of the industry.

Washington-born Scott Goodacre started the website three months after he began a Journalism degree at the University of Sunderland.

Scott said: “I didn’t think that there would be any opportunities to do what I wanted to do at University. I thought setting up The Music Magazine would be the best way to get the experience I need.”

Scott is now coming to the end of his three-year course at Sunderland and with a job offer on the table from a Newcastle PR firm he is unable to devote the time necessary to keep the website going.

He said: “The problem I’ve had is that my writers aren’t reliable as I can’t afford to pay them. I don’t make any money out of it and never have and with my new job starting soon I won’t have the time to keep it going.”

But Scott hopes that he will be able to resurrect TMM when he is settled into full-time employment.

He said: “I’m going to keep the website up, but not update it. My plan is to look again at the situation in a few months and hopefully I’ll have the time to revisit it.

“The best bit about running TMM has been the free gigs and the free CDs. I’ve paid to get into one gig in three years and I can’t remember the last time I had to pay for music.”

But Scott refused to entertain the possibility of giving the site away to someone else to run.

He said: “I’ve put a hell of a lot of time and effort, and even sometimes money, into building up the site and increasing our traffic.

“I don’t think I could bear seeing someone else profiting from my hard work. But if Bill Gates came in with a silly offer, I’d have to consider it obviously!”

Ultimately TMM could not compete with websites such as Drowned in Sound that have been around for a lot longer and are even able to have a paid staff, although even DiS have been struggling lately and rumours suggest they could be forced to shut down if no investment is found.

The closure of TMM is a blow to North East music fans, who will have to find somewhere new to get their fix of reviews, news and features.

[This article was originally published on InJournalism]