Mike Williams
Editor-in-Chief, Sight and Sound
Relaunching a music icon, the difficult balance of pleasing long-standing and new readers, and causing an election furore with Corbyn.
Mike Williams is the Editor-in-Chief of NME, the UK’s most widely read music publication. Launched in 1952 as a newspaper, NME was the first British title to include a singles chart, and later championed emerging British groups such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Oasis. Mike led the successful relaunch of NME as a free magazine in 2015, and was named Editor of the Year in 2016, when the magazine recorded its highest ever circulation. In this in-depth interview, Mike takes us behind the scenes of the strange world of working with musicians, and explains the difference in attitude between global megastars and promising new acts; describes how to appeal both to older long-time readers and a younger audience; and reveals how he found himself at the centre of a political storm after interviewing Jeremy Corbyn.
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