As we complete three and a quarter years of almost daily publishing, here are a few facts, figures and observations on Nordic Music Central.
Putting aside the first three months of 2021 when we were getting going, we increased the total number of page views between 2022 and 2023 by over 297% and between 2023 and 1700 hours on 29th December 2024 by 128%.
The decrease in the increase if you like in 2024 is a little disappointing but realistically you are not going to get exponential growth for more than one year in ‘blog’ publishing of a niche interest subject, so I’m more than happy the way it is going.
While we will never be Pitchfork or Rolling Stone (and would not wish to be, anyway) we can realistically look forward to cracking the 100,000 annual page hits barrier on a rolling basis before long and there are few generic musical publications that achieve that figure quickly or even at all.
The majority readership is in the United States, and collectively in the five Nordic countries, then the UK, Poland and Germany.
The 500+ per day page readership mark has been hit twice this year and normalising that has to be our next aim. 500 every day means almost 200,000 annual hits which would put us close to Premier League status to use a football analogy.
Technically, the average view time is 45 seconds which is about right because the average article length is around 500 words. The average number of sessions per user is 1.2 which means some people are going on to read other articles though not as many as I would like and I’m looking at ways of improving that ratio, such as making it easier to flick back to the previous review or on to the next one.
Just less than 2/3rds of readers this year did so on a mobile phone, just less than one third on a desktop computer with the remaining couple of percent taken up by tablets and a miniscule amount (that I would like to increase) on a smart TV.
The engagement rate in 2024 was 47% which is ok but could be improved.
The principal objective of NMC is to bring unknown or less well known Nordic country artists and bands to the attention of people across the whole world and I think I can safely say we do that as we have now been read in almost every country on Earth.
Where we’ve been read in 2024
Source: Google Analytics
(There were two readers in Mongolia and one in the Maldives!)
Bringing artists to the attention of labels, other reviewers (I know we get read by them), the mainstream media, other musicians, PR companies, management, promoters etc is our aim. I am more interested in the ‘quality’ of the readers than the quantity. Quantity always invites argumentative types that are looking for a fight in the ‘Comments’ section. I am pleased to say that we have never had one of those.
On the contrary almost 100% of comments received through NMC are positive and we often obtain additional and useful information in those comments that adds to the main article.
Online comments on NMC’s social media pages are frequent. About 2% of them point out an error in the review of one form or another, 1% are critical and the remainder are positive. I can’t tell you enough how important artist comments like “you don’t know how much this means to me” are – to me.
One disappointment is that we have not yet cracked the mainstream audio media. I have written to the BBC on numerous occasions suggesting a ‘Nordic song of the week’ or similar on one or of their many national and regional radio channels only to be met by the dismissive and unimaginative attitude I have come to expect of that organisation.
I have had a little more luck with a couple of independent radio channels and will probably focus on them this year.
There has been a reduction in Weekend Intermission articles (non-Nordic), also interviews and live shows/festivals this year and I am determined to tackle that next year.
I have a couple of potential irons in the fire, namely podcasts and reaction videos. The podcast is the more likely one first. I am not a fan of reaction videos on You Tube. There are many thousands of reactors now, far more then there are publication writers.
Many of them (not all) seem to do it so they can get their mug onto a video, talking unrehearsed garbage about songs they haven’t even reviewed privately first, while clocking up as many clicks as they can. And the vast majority actually ‘review’ nothing; they simply heap praise on the artist. I’m not up for that and if I ever do it the process will be vastly different.
The cost of the professional equipment needed to do all this is prohibitive and that prompts me to thank those people that have contributed to my ‘Buy me a coffee’ subscription page, which is helping to cover the basic costs of running Nordic Music Central. Thank you!!
As always, I continue to seek new writers so we can increase the size and scope of the publication. There is no commitment. One review a week would be just fine!
I’m hoping to get involved with a new venture this coming year, namely a new state of the art events venue in a newly constructed building in Oldham, Greater Manchester, UK, which is my home town.
The details are sketchy yet but the intention, which I have discussed with the Head of Culture, would be to posit the venue as the go-to one for Nordic artists looking to play in northern England. The immediate catchment area for the venue runs to around five million people.
London has a couple of venues that host many Nordic artists and I can’t see why there shouldn’t be one in the north of England.
More on this as and when I can reveal it.
That’s all for now, please tell others about NMC and help to keep it gaining in momentum!
Cheers
David Bentley
