Since 1983, Metal Hammer magazine has been providing fans with up to date news about bands, albums, and everything related to the metal scene. But now the future looks uncertain.
The UK’s Daily Record reports that Metal Hammer’s parent company, Team Rock, “has entered administration.” This is the United States equivalent of either bankruptcy or liquidation. Either way, it doesn’t look good for the magazine’s staff, with a reported 73 job cuts and only seven members left on board. With a staff of seven, this makes putting out a full-color, monthly magazine impossible. From the report:
Team Rock had also acquired the Classic Rock, Prog and Metal Hammer magazines from Future Publishing in 2013 in a £10.2 million deal which took the Small/ Mid sized Deal of the Year at Insider’s 2013 Deals and Dealmakers Awards.
Appointed administrators from FRP Advisory said the business had traded at a loss “for a significant period of time, with consequent constraints on the cash position”.
The administrators added: “Cost-cutting measures were implemented and despite the best efforts of the directors to seek additional investment or a purchaser for the business, no deal could be completed, leaving the company with no viable option other than to enter administration and to immediately cease trading.
“A handful of staff have been retained to assist the administrators, with all other employees made redundant.”
“Given the financial situation of the company, unfortunately 73 staff have been made redundant with immediate effect (46 in London; 27 in High Blantyre).
“Seven staff will be retained in the short term, three in London and four in High Blantyre, to assist the administrators with magazine publishing, website maintenance and other matters.
The report also notes that Team Rock was 11.7 million in debt, a number surely much increased at this point. Team Rock, besides being the parent company for Metal Hammer, was also the force behind Classic Rock, Prog, the Golden God Awards and the Classic Rock awards.
Since then, the metal community has come together to launch a crowd-funding campaign to help support the 73 laid off staffers, all of whom were let go without any severance or pay, and right before the holidays. Campaign organizer, and Orange Goblin frontman, Ben Ward said:
Today, 73 members of the Team Rock staff were told that the company is going into liquidation and that they are being made redundant with immediate effect with ZERO pay. These are good, hard-working, committed people that through Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Prog Rock, TeamRock Radio and more, have supported the rock and heavy metal scene in this country for decades and now we, the rock community, need to pull together to help give something back.
Please spare what you can so that everyone may enjoy the festive spirit.
The campaign’s goal of 20,000 has surpassed its goal and currently sits at 36,312 as of this article. If you wish to keep this ball of generosity rolling, you can donate to the campaign and help make sure all of the good people of Metal Hammer make sure they can have enough money to get through the holidays. You can donate to the campaign here.
